


Sousuke the Royal Fluffer

by tenser



Category: Free!
Genre: Anal Sex, Aphrodisiacs, Arabian AU, Blow Jobs, Body Worship, Harems, Imprisonment, M/M, Masturbation, Medicine, Multiship, Polyamory, Rimming, Rin worship, Sexual Slavery, Threesome, body care, detailed descriptions of fingering, redemption for Sousuke, self-respect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-02-06 19:29:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 46,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12824466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenser/pseuds/tenser
Summary: In the desert kingdom of Samezuka, the prince was famed for his wealth and power. Rumor claimed that every night the prince deflowered a new virgin, and that he kept a harem so vast that it was its own palace… If the rumors about Prince Rin’s harem were true, Sousuke would long ago have quit out of sheer overwork and not a little bit of jealousy. As the sole fluffer in the prince’s harem, he knew the truth.An Arabian AU in which Sousuke is the fluffer—aka, the person who prepares others to “perform”—of Prince Rin’s harem :D





	1. Nagisa Hazuki

**Author's Note:**

> This whole idea started as a joke between me and my girlfriend at the time. “What would the Arabian AU version of Sousuke be? I bet he’d be Rin’s fluffer!” I love harems and I love pathetic Sousuke, so I started to write the idea just for fun, but then it took on a life of its own. It’s been years and many, many breaks since it started but now I present… A fic where Sousuke not only gets to get sexy with but HAS TO GET SEXY WITH everyone!

In all the vast Kingdom of Samezuka, no one was more famed for his wealth and power than the prince, ruler of the kingdom. It was whispered in the dry deserts that the prince bathed in water drawn from a newly dredged spring every day, that all his clothes were made of gold, and that his trophies of war were beyond count. It was boasted in the boisterous markets that every day the prince feasted on fresh fruit from his acres of gardens, rare nuts from his deep storehouse, and a whole sheep from the copious flocks that roamed the vast expanse of the palace grounds. And it was claimed in parties held in the open-air mansions of the merchants and aristocrats that every night the prince deflowered a new virgin that he chose from the finest dancing girls and boys in the world, and kept a harem so vast that it was its own palace. 

**

If the rumors about Prince Rin’s harem were true, Sousuke would long ago have hung himself with a silk scarf out of sheer overwork and not a little bit of jealousy. As the sole “royal fluffer” in the prince’s harem, he knew the truth behind the rumors. 

The prince’s sexual appetite was greatly exaggerated, but not obscenely so. In the five years that he’d worked in the harem, Sousuke had sent dozens of virgins (all boys—the rumors about girls, at least, had been greatly exaggerated) to be deflowered. Technically, as Sousuke slid his fingers into their asses, spreading and stretching their holes, he was the one who stole their innocence. But if you counted by cocks, and of course Rin would, the prince’s virgin count was somewhere reaching over fifty and Sousuke’s was a big fat zero. 

The harem wasn’t a palace, but it did occupy a full wing of the palace. The number of people in the harem was also heavily inaccurate. No more than fifteen individuals were kept for Prince Rin’s amusement and pleasure. Of those, most were boys, and of those boys, he regularly visited only a few.

Today being a typical day, Nagisa Hazuki came bouncing over to Sousuke’s chamber inside the harem an hour after sunset, all blond curls and smiles. 

“Sei-chan says to get me ready!” the blond exclaimed. “Rin-chan’s coming in fifteen minutes and I’m all dressed.”

Sousuke wondered why Seijuro “Sei-chan” Mikoshiba hadn’t told him the schedule directly, but the Head Keeper of the harem had been rather occupied with other matters recently, such as staffing what would become Princess Gou’s harem. At least Nagisa, of all the prince’s regulars, needed the least prep. The enthusiastic boy would probably gladly do it himself if he didn’t enjoy teasing the gruff Deputy Keeper so much.

“Don’t call the prince ‘Rin-chan’,” Sousuke grumbled, not moving from his chair. “And come here.”

Nagisa happily flumped his small body into Sousuke’s much larger lap. Despite the blond squirming and giving light sighs against the irritated fluffer’s cheek, Sousuke went about his business with professionalism. He always was professional. 

Given that the prince would arrive in fifteen minutes, there was no time for the usual oil scrub or bathing that preceded the prep, so Sousuke went about doing that for which he was paid. He simply rubbed a floral-scented oil under the curls of Nagisa’s forehead before pulling a larger jar with thicker liquid off an overburdened wooden shelf.

“Why are you so serious all the time, Sou-chan?” asked Nagisa, spreading his legs wide on either side of Sousuke’s lap, parting his sheer skirt. His eyes glittered as the fluffer dipped his fingers into the goop of the jar. 

“Because this is my job,” Sousuke said. That shouldn’t really require explanation. 

“Mmm, feels good,” Nagisa said of Sousuke’s fingers entering him with the thick liquid, obviously relaxing into the intimate touch as much as if he were being given a massage instead of having his body pried open. The boy gasped, wriggled, and nuzzled as Sousuke inserted a first, then a second and third finger. Gently, so gently. It was a fine art, stretching a person to the exact size they needed to be without snapping or bruising the delicate flesh inside or out. They had to be just open enough to take Rin’s cock, but not so wide that the prince didn’t get the pleasure of a tight channel. Sousuke remembered how he’d perfected his simulation of the royal cock by watching for the moment the experienced harem boys started shaking around his fingers. He memorized the perfect width, the definite length. If he was the sculpting type, he could have carved Rin’s dick out of marble by now, given how well he understood its dimensions. When he prepped a boy, he molded his fingers to become Rin’s cock. Even though he’d never touched the royal penis, he knew everything about it. After all, in many ways, what was between Rin’s legs was his entire life.

Nagisa rocked back and forth on the fluffer’s fingers, a sure sign it was time to chase the little brat out. 

“Mmm, Sousuke, why won’t you ever fuck me?” Nagisa whined. Sousuke cursed himself for losing track of time and letting the lid crack open on the cesspool of horniness that was the blond mophead. 

“Stop saying that,” Sousuke frowned. “You belong to the prince.”

Nagisa pouted. “Rin-chan is sexy, but I want to fuck somebody ellllse~ Anyway, you slept with Nitori, why not me?”

Sousuke glared and finished up, applying a film of oil from Nagisa’s balls up his crack. Even the little airhead knew not to disturb the protection he’d just received, so he didn’t protest as Sousuke silently lifted him out of his lap and gave him a push out the door. 

“But whyyyy Nitori and not me?” Nagisa badgered. 

“None of your business,” Sousuke said. That one cursed time had everything to do with the tantalizing presence of royal semen and it was nothing Nagisa needed to know about.

“Ohhh. Well, bye-bye,” Nagisa waved happily, already moving on to thoughts of how to please the prince. 

Sousuke quietly closed the door, set his supplies back in the cluttered wooden shelves and cabinets where they were kept, listened for the prince to enter the harem, counted twenty minutes, then took his dick out. 

By some gift of fortune, Sousuke’s chamber was closest to Nagisa’s. Though the stone walls muffled any light conversation, the noise of sexual exertions made themselves clear. Nagisa’s wild moans drifted amidst the fluffer’s vials and jars, overpowering the soft sounds of his own masturbation. Nearly every time Rin bedded the small harem boy, Sousuke listened attentively, waiting for the prince’s noises. 

First came Rin’s laughter. He’d no doubt tipped Nagisa over, having gained some small victory over the blond’s incessant teasing. The joyful noise bubbled up through Sousuke’s veins. It was criminal that one person’s laughter could elicit so much happiness in another.

As the tryst continued, the louder bits of Rin’s banter could be parsed, growly and warm all at the same time. He sounded like he had to be smiling around those sinful teeth as he doled out filthy praise. Because it was Nagisa that the prince was fucking, his tone was happy and light. Brotherly almost, except for the fact that Sousuke could hear the banging of the low wooden cot against the wall. 

Sousuke stroked himself, his hand still slathered with the same lube Rin’s cock was now sliding on. It wasn’t hard to imagine the prince’s dick sliding through his hands, and he gripped himself harder. 

Rin was getting needier, his voice lower and post-lingual. His animalistic groans shot arousal into Sousuke’s gut, gripping him with fever. He palmed his dick harder, filthy images pouring into his head as he lost himself: Rin sliding down his dick, Rin pressing up into him and taking him like any of the other harem boys, Rin moaning _like that_ for him. 

Sousuke came before Rin every time, but he couldn’t calm down while Rin was still fucking, so he closed his eyes and panted and fell into a world of nothing but the contours of Rin’s imagined body and his beautiful voice. After the prince finished, Sousuke quietly wiped his hand with a chamois skin and laid waiting for the night to end.


	2. Haruka Nanase

Deep blue eyes glared at the royal fluffer. But given that Sousuke had two fingers twisting inside the devastatingly, annoyingly handsome black-haired boy, he felt he had the upper hand so to speak. 

According to Head Keeper Mikoshiba, and confirmed by gossip from Nagisa (and he hated to admit _that_ was the more reliable source), the sourpuss before him was none other than a trespassing thief whom the prince had somehow caught and taken a shine to. The prince had even intervened to redirect the thief from the dungeon to the harem. Sousuke had absolutely no idea what the prince saw in this dour piece of shit. 

The royal fluffer didn’t often allow emotions into his work, but this boy… He was so annoying. Ever since the moment he’d shown up, a useless if handsome lump dragged in by Mikoshiba’s strong hands, the boy had been infuriatingly disinterested. This boy was going to know the pleasure of sleeping with Prince Rin but had the balls to be petulant about it. That pissed Sousuke off. 

Yet, the fluffer went through the regular routine for a new boy. He was a _professional._ He’d laid him on a wide wooden plank as he worked in a layer of oil over the boy’s whole body. The boy had a peculiar fishy smell that Sousuke covered up with a blend of lavender and jasmine oils. Working in oil was the most taxing part of his job as it irritated his shoulder, so he generally he reserved the oil massages for virgins or when Nagisa really, really begged for it. 

The boy’s muscles remained tense as Sousuke rubbed the rounded planes of his back and calves. When he cupped a globe of the boy’s ass and slathered oil against the rearmost of his private parts, the boy jerked. 

He pointedly looked away the rest of the time as Sousuke caressed his sculpted abs and dramatic hipbones. However, even _he_ couldn’t feign disinterest when Sousuke pulled out his shaving blade. 

“Don’t move,” Sousuke said, beginning the lengthy depilorizing process. The boy didn’t have much hair, but Rin liked his boys perfectly smooth, and so it all had to go. The oils had made his skin pliable, and with the help of a scented lather, the knife glided over the boy’s flesh like a bird on a current. 

“Sit up,” Sousuke said, after finishing the body. But the boy wouldn’t budge and finally Sousuke forcibly raised him into a sitting position. He grabbed his chin and turned his face to the side. Those deep blue eyes glared into his. It amused Sousuke; after all, he was the one with a knife at the guy’s throat. He slid the blade over his jaw slowly, just this side of rough. Leaving any sort of mark wasn’t an option. 

When he’d finished shaving, he gave the boy a jug of water to clean himself with. Of course the guy persisted in being difficult by dumping the whole contents of the jug on his near-dry hair. There was enough time for the bedraggled strands to dry again, but barely, so Sousuke let him know his displeasure with a glare.

He let the boy dry himself off again, then applied jasmine scent again over his body. Sometimes Sousuke gave them make-up but he figured this one would bite his hand off, and honestly he was already too attractive. 

Nothing left but the actual prep. 

As he gathered his ointments, he began the calming spiel he gave to all the virgins before their deflowering. “Listen. You’re in the prince’s harem. You’ve been given the honor of receiving the prince’s pleasure. Don’t get the wrong idea. You’re not here to pleasure him. He’ll take what he wants from you.”

The little punk was still gazing away. Well, if he wouldn’t listen, Sousuke couldn’t help him. 

“The prince can’t be bothered to prepare you. That’s my job. I’ll make it so that he’ll be able to have sex with you, and it won’t hurt.”

Usually at this point, the virgin boy would look up at him with a heartbreakingly hopeful expression. This fucker was, no surprise, glaring. 

“Do you want it to hurt?” Sousuke growled.

“It doesn’t matter,” came the quiet, steely response. The boy’s voice, like his body, was quite beautiful. Still, that didn’t excuse his poor attitude. Sousuke had half a mind to not prep him at all. Letting the bastard feel the pain of his sphincter tearing was a very enticing proposition. Unfortunately, Rin would blanche from blood on his bedsheets, and Sousuke would never put Rin in a position that would make him uncomfortable. 

“Open your legs,” Sousuke said, prying the appendages open when his command wasn’t heeded. Grumbling, he reached for the minted balm, again hesitating. If he didn’t administer the balm, he’d get the satisfaction of knowing the boy cringed once Rin did finally tame him enough to slide his cock in. But Rin wouldn’t like that—he’d never enjoyed hurting his boys before.

Dammit, Sousuke wished for once he didn’t know Rin so well. He dipped his hand through the numbing mint balm and pressed his fingers against the boy’s hole. The boy gasped, naturally, and glared. Naturally. 

“It’s numbing,” Sousuke explained. “It’ll help you stay loose too.”

After working in the numbing agent, Sousuke cleaned his fingers, then coated a finger in the thick goopy ointment. He smeared it over the boy’s backside, and kept running his fingers over the puckered dip. The most important part was getting the boys accustomed to feeling someone touch down there. He often had them touch themselves, but with this stubborn freak, he wasn’t even going to try. 

Slipping over the hole enough times, his finger started to dip deeper until he finally curved it in. The boy’s body tensed to reject him. When that happened, Sousuke usually pulled out and attempted again until the violent reaction abated.

But this time, Sousuke was pissed off. He shoved his fingers a few centimeters deeper, scissoring them to allow more penetration. The boy winced, his mouth trembling in a pretty little arc for a moment before flattening into his perpetual frown. God, that pissed Sousuke off.

“I told you this is how to keep it from hurting. If you make the prince worry about your worthless existence, I’ll personally drown you in the harem pool,” Sousuke warned. The black-haired boy at least flinched upon hearing about a watery death.

“There’s a pool?” The boy dropped his glare for a minute.

“Yes. It belongs to the prince, just like everything else. Just like you, thief,” Sousuke growled. 

“I want to swim,” the boy said. His eyes trained to the ceiling, as if he was speaking to the gods. 

“You can, if you don’t make tonight terrible for the prince,” Sousuke said, answering in place of the unseen deity. If nothing else, he was the lord of this tiny, perverted domain. 

The boy nodded for the first time, eyes meeting his. “I understand.”

“Good,” Sousuke answered, somewhat bewildered, but pleased enough to proceed to the end of preparations. 

He wiped off the thick lubricant with soft linen, then slicked up the boy’s balls and hole with oil. The skin still was red from just having been shaved. Finally he selected a blue and black loincloth for him to wear. Washing, shaving, oiling, even dressing—it was all part of Sousuke’s job. Despite the disinterested subject, he had done his usual good work.

The sun had set and the evening star twinkled in the sky beyond the glass ceiling of the baths. Any minute now the evening gong would strike, and Rin would come to the harem to claim his possession. 

Sousuke wanted to make sure the presentation of this boy’s room, too, was perfect, even if it was to present an ingrate who had to be bribed with pool privileges to sleep with the prince. The room across the way from the bathing pool had been vacant for a while, and earlier he’d directed Nagisa and Nitori to set it with blue pillows and a tapestry. The boys were tossing in the last of the pillows when Sousuke arrived with the black-haired boy in tow. Nagisa immediately bounded over.

“You’re the prisoner!” Nagisa exclaimed. 

Sousuke pretended not to eavesdrop as he fiddled with pillows, but he listened intently as the blond continued. 

“Everyone’s been talking about how you were about to be beheaded but were spared at the last minute when the prince was taken with your beauty! That’s so romantic.”

The black-haired boy didn’t respond.

“C’mon, it’s true, right? That’s amazing!”

“Nagisa, I don’t think he wants to talk. We should leave him alone,” chided Nitori. 

“It’s fine,” the black-haired boy said. Sousuke was surprised to hear him speak. Nagisa truly had a fine career as a courtesan ahead of him if he could get the taciturn wonder to speak. 

A smile was evident in Nagisa’s tone. “Hey, hey, what did you get arrested for? Did you murder someone?”

“Nagisa!” Nitori was beside himself with panic, as always. 

“Did you steal the palace jewels? I’ve always wanted to see what they look like. Does the crown really have garnets the size of your hand?”

“I just swam,” the boy said. His voice was soft and fluid. Everything about him seemed to defy solidity in favor of sidestepping. 

“You can swim?!” both boys exclaimed, to which Sousuke finally growled. 

“Enough. If you’re done, get out. Prince Rin will be here any second.” 

The two smaller boys scuttled away. Once it was just Sousuke and the sullen boy, he gave him a once-over and then went to tell Mikoshiba everything was set. It wasn’t his job to escort Rin through the harem, or even talk to him. That was Mikoshiba’s job; Sousuke remained as invisible as his work. 

That night across the baths he heard the prince’s loud cries piercing the night with no companion cries to affirm his pleasure. Try as he might, Sousuke couldn’t jerk off. 

**

The next morning, Sousuke awoke to a beautiful sight. Across the baths he saw Rin perched cross-legged and casual on a mound of pillows, his red hair and gold jewelry gleaming in the morning sun. The prince’s white robe hung loosely off his shoulder, exposing the full expanse of his muscular torso. The black-haired boy was naked, entangled in the nest of dark blue blankets and pillows that Rin sat upon. 

Sousuke often caught glimpses, even lengthy ones, of the prince in person, but he could never get enough of looking at him. The man was so regal, beautiful, desirable. Sousuke’s heart clenched with something like love every time he saw him. 

Getting to see the prince languid and unguarded was the true privilege of working in the harem, though moments like this were a rare occurrence. The fluffer knew he wasn’t supposed to see this, just as he wasn’t supposed to be seen, and so remained stock still in his room. And he watched. 

After Rin got bored looking so beautiful observing the pool, he attempted to rouse his companion with caresses, and when that failed, he leaned in to kiss him. Much to Sousuke’s surprise, the boy shifted and welcomed Rin’s mouth. Rin’s hands traveled all over, possessively touching his prize, one hand eventually wandering to his own cock. 

Sousuke’s pulse shot up. He couldn’t see Rin’s dick, as the robe and hand were in the way, but each little motion captivated him, from the rising angle of Rin’s chin to the slight jerk of his hips following the stroke of his cock. 

A royal hand with painted nails pushed open the dark-haired boy’s legs, and Rin positioned himself for entry. Sousuke’s heart leapt at the prospect of seeing Rin fuck, when he realized first that it would never happen. The boy’s entrance would have tightened up overnight and be in no condition for accepting Rin’s sudden intrusion. And yes, as soon as Rin thrust, his cock slipped up.

Should Sousuke show himself? Unlike the other harem boys, this one didn’t have his emergency oil because Sousuke had been too annoyed to remember to give it to him. If Rin couldn’t have sex now, it was Sousuke’s fault. 

But then, it did happen. Words were said, bodies shifted. Rin abandoned the idea of penetration, and jerked the boy along with himself. Sousuke was entranced. Rin rarely engaged in non-penetrative sex, and Sousuke could tell from his surprised gasps how much this time was different for him: the sublime rocking of Rin’s hips as he slid his cock against the other’s; the confident hand on the boy’s knee, holding him open; the ambivalent body language of the other boy who still kissed Rin passionately whenever their mouths grew close. 

Sousuke was touching himself now, hand around his thick cock painfully dry, but he was too afraid to reach for the oils just a few feet away for fear of spilling them and causing a distraction. He squeezed himself instead, modulating pressure. With each gasp and cry, he imagined Rin’s hot, stiff cock gripped alongside his. He thought about being spread before Rin, just like the black-haired boy was. He wanted Rin to feel ecstasy from rubbing against him. In Sousuke’s mind they would have slathered lubricant between them, letting Rin slide against him furiously. 

Opening his eyes from the fantasy was hard, but he heard Rin’s climax noises start to spill out. The prince called a strange name before moaning out his orgasm. Sousuke followed immediately after.


	3. Lifeguard

Lifeguard was not one of the fluffer’s duties. Neither was security guard, but he’d become both of these things since the black-haired boy’s—Haruka Nanase’s—entrance into the harem.

He’d become a “security guard” because Nanase had a propensity for trying to escape. Often, Nagisa or Nitori would send up a clamor and hold him back until Sousuke could come tie him up for a while. But Sousuke tried to keep an eye on him all the time. 

When Nanase wasn’t trying to escape or staring off into space, he was swimming in the bathing pool. And so Sousuke had to play “lifeguard” and make sure the guy wasn’t drowning or making a break for it while everyone conveniently forgot he was in the pool for a hundred years.

Sousuke understood that life in the harem was boring; hell, he was bored near to death except for when he was grinding herbs or actively prepping. The other boys all had some sort of hobby: take Nitori and his drawing. Or writing, rather, now that Nagisa had coerced some poor palace guard to sneak in and tutor them. Sousuke often found a book full of scribbled letters in the rat’s nest of Nitori’s chambers when he was cleaning it up for Rin’s use. Nitori would always get so embarrassed and hide his work. But at least he had a hobby. Nagisa’s hobby was gossip and sneaking out, presumably to find snacks or more gossip. Or probably to find that blue-haired guard he conned into tutoring them. Sousuke needed to mention something to Mikoshiba about that, because a member of the prince’s harem shouldn’t be sleeping around with mere palace guards. Or Sousuke could go talk to the guard’s superiors; he still had a few friends from his days in the military before his injury had forced him to accept the thankless, invisible task of fluffer.

Anyway, Nanase’s hobby was swimming, and he did it incessantly. The first day of his stay in the harem, mere minutes after the prince had glided out the door, he’d jumped in the pool. Sousuke was talking with Mikoshiba, learning that the prince was very happy and that this “Haruka Nanase” was to be kept on and given choice treatment. Sousuke was asking what the prince saw in that angry jerk (hoping for some insight on the romantic scene he’d seen that morning) when he heard the splash and immediately headed for the pool to see if anyone drowned. 

The harem had its own bath complex, with several small heated mineral baths and a large tile-lined pool. Fountains in the wall constantly fed it, and the sparkle of glass tiles on the bottom lent a rainbow of gleaming light to the ceiling. Of everything in the harem, the luxury of the baths surely matched public expectations most closely. 

In a lovely arc, the black-haired boy glided through the clear waters, swimming underwater until he emerged at the far side. He was only up long enough to take a breath before submerging himself again and twisting like a fish back across the pool. 

Just one second watching him made Sousuke’s heart plummet. Because now he understood why Rin was taken with the boy.

He was not simply beautiful, he was _profoundly_ beautiful.

Sousuke had been so caught up with the confrontation the previous night that he failed to notice that absolutely everything about Nanase was in line with Rin’s tastes. He was a centimeter or two shorter than the prince. Rin didn’t like men larger than him, since that intimidated him. Nanase was lean rather than bulky, another of Rin’s preferences. He was delicate too, not just in his features but in the grace of his movements. Plus the fact that he was so defiant while in the prince’s harem meant he had willpower of steel. And Rin couldn’t back down from a challenge.

After being ignored for a while, Sousuke dipped his arm in the pool and waved. The boy rose to the surface, looking even more beautiful with sleek, wet hair clinging to his face. 

“I’m going to swim more,” the boy said, already dipping back into the water. Sousuke’s brow furrowed—he hadn’t even said anything yet. 

“Get out. I’m going to check you for injuries,” Sousuke said, grabbing the boy’s arm. 

“Don’t touch me,” Nanase hissed. He yanked his arm from Sousuke’s grip with great force, sending shocks of excruciating pain through Sousuke’s shoulder. Immobilized, the fluffer stood gripping the injured joint. No matter how much time passed, the pain was always fresh when triggered. 

Once the first wave subsided, Sousuke hobbled to his chamber, ripped off his shirt and grabbed the strongest of his pain-blocking balms. All thoughts of that defiant asshole in the pool were secondary to containing the awful, soul-rending pain in his shoulder. Jars and bottles clattered as he shoved them away, grasping for the tub-like jar of white, minty gel. He slicked a copious amount on the fingers of his left hand and slathered gel on his right shoulder. Immediately the prickling numbness sank into his flesh and he collapsed in relief. 

A small, empty vial rolled near his feet. He stared at the cracked, old thing and memories flowed back. In them he was thirteen again, holding that vial while tears of frustration streamed down his bruised and battered face. He remembered hope turning to despair as his shoulder failed to heal after the incident. He remembered Mikoshiba’s large hands handing the nurse so many vials like that, tiny oases of relief in a desert of biting pain.

He glanced out at the pool, the black-haired boy swimming as if nothing had happened. Sousuke allowed himself to drift further into memory while he waited out the anesthesia.

He remembered the attack itself. The bright bloom of fire that rocked the palanquin and sent him flying in the air. The sickening weightlessness before his body smashed against the ground. The shouts and commotion that never really registered. The thick blood draining from everywhere on his body. 

Then there were the healing chambers in the medical wing where he spent a long time barely conscious or able to see, wrapped in bandages and balms. 

His body, slowly coming back to him piece by piece. 

The first time he saw Rin after the attack was indicative of things to come. The prince’s brilliant red hair and white robe flowing in the wind caught his eye from his hospital bed. Sousuke called out, but his cry was muffled by a nurse, who shook her head. At first he believed he was being kept away so Rin wouldn’t be sad about seeing him like that, but as he recovered, and could walk outside, he realized he was being kept away from the prince because a prince shouldn’t see a sick or injured person. And he was injured still—his shoulder would not heal. Because of that, he could no longer resume his role as Rin’s body double. He was broken, and utterly useless. He wasn’t worthy of being in the prince’s presence. 

He still tried. He went back to the military and resumed his original goal of becoming a general at Prince Rin’s side. But within weeks he was in such pain that he found himself tracking down another vial of that balm, this time from Mikoshiba himself so that the medics wouldn’t know. That was how he began coming to the harem regularly, enough that Mikoshiba offered to teach him how to make balms himself. Inside the then-unoccupied fluffer’s room for the first time, Sousuke found salvation. He made stronger and stronger blends with Mikoshiba’s herbs and waxes. For his part, the Head Keeper was pleased to have someone around, and Sousuke was happy to be pushing himself again in training. 

Until it all fell apart one day, his shoulder twisting so horridly in mock combat that he spent days in the infirmary and weeks on his own trying to coax it back into functioning. Finality hung over his shoulder, literally, as he watched his peers advance in their training while he could barely even pick up a sword. 

Meanwhile his trips to the harem continued, as he combated the constant pain. At first he didn’t notice the changes around the pleasure quarters, because for him the harem was a hospital, not a pleasure dome. But Mikoshiba grew busier herding around the growing pool of strange voluptuous girls and a few toned, wide-eyed boys. They began taking over his workspace as Mikoshiba brought the strangers to the fluffer’s chambers and did...things to them. It was beginning to be a problem.

Realizing his resident junior assistant was tired of being shooed out, Mikoshiba started letting Sousuke stay. Sousuke still thought of himself as a soldier, but let himself be introduced as harem staff. 

Then one day, Mikoshiba asked him to help. 

“Ahh! I’m tired of prepping all these boys! All I see are assholes!” Mikoshiba whined one day when they were alone. “Why couldn’t the prince ask for a foxy, buxom woman for once? I didn’t sign up for this!”

Sousuke looked up from grinding dried leaves at the mention of the prince. 

“Ah, Sousuke! You want to help out more, don’t you? You’re always here.”

Sousuke turned his head away. “I’m here to make better medicine.” Definitely not for whatever Mikoshiba had in mind. 

“You’d be great at it!” Mikoshiba grinned, either ignoring Sousuke or answering him. “You’re the same size as most of the boys, they wouldn’t be scared of you. Just do me a favor and help out with the next one. He’s gonna need your medicine.”

“Fine,” Sousuke caved. He suddenly needed to confirm something. He asked tentatively, “Are all the boys and girls here going to sleep with the prince?”

“Yup, they’re here to be slept with. You can see he’s picky, we keep sending them back... ”

It took Sousuke all day to come to terms that at the age of 14, Rin was not a virgin and he was. He was being left out and left behind again. 

That night, he reported to the harem after the eighth bell tolled. When he entered, he suddenly noticed things in a different light. He noticed the suggestive tapestries and ornate brass lanterns that had gone up since he’d first come. He saw lights in the chambers. Somewhere between when he’d started coming and now, the dormant harem had become alive. 

He followed Mikoshiba to the room of a small, silver-haired boy who looked both terrified and excited at the same time. As the Keeper bathed and shaved him, the boy revealed that he was looking forward to being deflowered by the prince, whom he admired. His family was staunch supporters of the crown, and he had volunteered himself as tribute upon the occasion of the prince’s 14th birthday. 

From Nitori, Sousuke learned that under his nose, the harem had officially opened on the prince’s 13th birthday and young people from across the land were encouraged to come offer a tribute of pleasure or service. Sousuke felt shame that he’d been so caught up in his own pain that he’d never noticed the changes around him. He’d lost sight of Rin, unlike Nitori. 

Despite the turmoil in his head, watching Mikoshiba place his fingers in Nitori’s tiny pink asshole completely arrested his attention. Mikoshiba talked and joked through the whole thing, but as he became more filled, Nitori started to shake and tear up. Sousuke went over and placed a comforting hand on Nitori’s forehead. 

“You’re doing this for Prince Rin,” Sousuke said. “Be brave.”

_If only_ Nitori hadn’t responded so well, and _if only_ Mikoshiba hadn’t been so happy about it, Sousuke might not have found himself in the position of inserting his own fingers next time. And if that hadn’t gone so well, then he certainly wouldn’t have found himself being offered the position of Deputy Keeper, aka “fluffer,” so that Mikoshiba could focus on the harem’s administration. 

Why he agreed, he couldn’t quite say. Simply that he could feel a momentum in the harem that had been extinguished elsewhere in his life, and if there was forward movement, maybe some day he could reach Rin.


	4. Makoto Tachibana

Time passed. Nanase immediately became the prince’s favorite and no one could displace him.

_“I don’t need to be prepared anymore. Just give me the balm.”_

Nanase’s words from the previous afternoon echoed in Sousuke’s mind as he woke. He also recalled the whimpers and cries that had followed that evening. Nanase’s soft keening was not a sound he’d ever wanted to hear, much less be turned on by, yet that was exactly what had happened. 

Sousuke got up and splashed himself with washing water. What troubled him more than the fact that he’d gotten off on Nanase’s moans was the fact that he’d allowed someone to go to the prince without prep. That stung his professional pride.

Finding Nanase asleep and Rin already gone, Sousuke walked the harem, looking for reassurance. Instead he found Nagisa pinning the blue-haired guard to the wall by way of mouth on cock. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” Sousuke growled. The blue-haired guard looked appropriately mortified, Nagisa considerably less so. 

“Sou-chan! Sorry, I’m almost done! Right, Rei-chan?”

“You didn’t need to say my name!”

“Silly, Rei-chan, now he knows it’s your name!”

“I don’t see how—”

“Anyway, Sou-chan, join us? I really want a cock in my ass and Rei-chan won’t give it to me.”

“You’re a disgrace, Nagisa.” Sousuke said. “You belong to the prince.”

“But Rin-chan won’t sleep with anyone but Haru-chan anymore! I’m just trying to keep up my professional skills!”

As laughable as it was, Sousuke felt a sudden respect and kinship for the horny blond. “Yeah, he hasn’t, has he?” Sousuke mumbled. 

“So I’m gonna finish here and Rei-chan will go back. Don’t tell Sei-chan, okay? I’ll ask Haru-chan to ask Rin-chan to sleep with the rest of us, okay?”

Sousuke couldn’t decide what was worse: that his fate was now in the hands of an oversexed airhead, or that later he told a neurotic Nitori not to worry because Nagisa would do something. 

**

Not very long after Nagisa coerced Rin and Nanase into having a noisy threesome with him, Sousuke’s afternoon reading on military tactics was interrupted by a knock at the door. An unfamiliar brown-haired young man dressed in flowing green robes stood nervously smiling in the entryway. 

“Um, hello? Are you the Deputy Keeper?”

“Yes,” Sousuke answered, putting down his book but not bothering to get up. 

“Well, this is embarrassing. I’m actually one of the new members of Princess Gou’s harem, but I was sent here because Mikoshiba thinks I could be in both.”

Sousuke was immediately suspicious. One, the prince and the princess ought to have separate harems. Mikoshiba himself had been pretty adamant about their royal personages not having to share, for obvious reasons such as they were royalty and for practical reasons such as not falling for the same courtesan. Secondly, the boys rarely showed up to his chamber without an escort. And third and most importantly, Mikoshiba ought to know that a hunk of beef like this guy was outside of Rin’s tastes. 

“Who sent you?” Sousuke’s eyes narrowed. 

The green-clad teenager’s eyes widened. “No, wait, I know that the prince isn’t interested in bodies like mine, or least that’s what the blond boy said… But Mikoshiba really did send me here. He thought maybe the prince needed an...alternative.”

Nagisa _again._

“Fine, I’ll show you around,” Sousuke said. 

“Thanks,” the timid guy beamed. 

Sousuke gave the guy a closer inspection as they exited his chambers and walked around the prince’s harem. He was tall and imposing, but his demeanor was as meek as a mouse. He was solidly built, but didn’t throw his weight around. He seemed genuine and kind, which Rin would gravitate toward. He might not be a bad choice after all in leeching the royal affections away from Nanase. 

“I heard that I’m being brought over because Prince Rin isn’t sleeping with any of his regular harem?” The green-clad boy echoed his thoughts.

Sousuke sighed. “He’s only sleeping with his favorite.”

“Right. A ‘Nanase’ was it?” He smiled. 

“Yes,” Sousuke answered, and as luck would have it, at that moment they rounded the corner into the natatorium where Nanase was practicing being a marine mammal. 

The new boy gasped upon seeing him. Sousuke blinked in surprise. Was it obvious to everyone how beautiful Nanase looked in the water? They stood watching until the favorite surfaced and noticed them.

“Makoto?” Nanase said. 

The red flag of suspicion from earlier fluttered through Sousuke’s brain. It was strange that these two knew each other, when Nanase didn’t seem to know or even speak to anyone. 

“Haru!” Makoto shouted. He rushed over to the water’s edge. “You were here! Are you okay?!”

“I’m fine,” Nanase said. 

“It’s been too long,” Makoto said. 

“Yes,” Nanase replied. 

“You’ll have time to talk later,” Sousuke said, an edge of annoyance creeping into his tone. 

“Sorry! I have to go now. We’ll talk later, Haru,” Makoto said, hurrying back to his guide’s side. 

“Okay,” Nanase said.

“We’re childhood friends,” Makoto explained excitedly as they finished the rounds. “I haven’t heard from him in a while, I didn’t expect to see him again!”

“And this is my chamber, where you come to prepare your body to pleasure the prince,” Sousuke finished his tour. He was annoyed by the odd reunion and eager to have things under control again. “Have you ever been penetrated by a man before?”

“O-o-oh, no,” replied Makoto, clearly taken off guard. 

“Then let’s start,” Sousuke said. 

When Makoto minced his way out of the chamber hours later, Sousuke’s hand went directly to his cock. 

The arousal he’d kept corked up while he was testing the new boy exploded and flowed through his veins like fire. He’d never enjoyed prep before. But Makoto had been so willing and pliable, and so hard the whole time. He’d gone under the razor with no complaint, opening his legs and shifting his body to allow Sousuke the easiest reach. He’d smiled at the pleasant scents in the oils. 

When the time came for penetration, he went down on hands and knees unbidden, his perfectly toned ass raised and waiting for Sousuke’s touch. He’d whimpered with pleasure just at the massage of his balls. He refused to touch his stiff cock, even though it looked painfully heavy. Even as he moaned taking Sousuke’s fingers. 

Sousuke relived those moans now as he stroked himself with fresh lubricant. He imagined that beautiful asshole stretching around his cock, sucking his length in the way it had consumed his fingers. The other man’s big body, so similar to Sousuke’s own, aroused him in ways that those twinky boys Rin seemed to prefer simply didn’t. He fantasized now of the way those back muscles would strain and shift as Sousuke pounded into him from behind. God, he’d been so tempted to do that when he’d had Makoto prone and obedient. He would never defile Rin’s property like that, but still, it would have been so easy to slide in. Makoto was so slick and ready, and just thinking about it now brought Sousuke so close.

His body tensed, and then released a hot spurt of semen. It took him a few minutes to come down, and when he did, he felt far too refreshed. 

What was becoming of him?

**

“Kick him out of the harem!” Sousuke shouted at Mikoshiba, pointing at a pink-haired boy leaning saucily against the wall in the Head Keeper’s official chambers.

“Why?” Mikoshiba raised a brow, and his head, up from the paperwork that had been so stormily intruded upon. 

Sousuke gritted his teeth, his finger of accusation still in the air. “He’s a bad influence on the others. He’s sleeping with the members of Prince Rin’s harem, even though he belongs to Princess Gou!”

“Now, now,” cooed the pink-haired boy. “That’s not fair, Sousuke. I’m allowed to be in the prince’s harem right now.”

“It’s true,” Mikoshiba said. “Be nice to Kisumi. He got kicked out of Gou’s harem because he wasn’t to her taste.”

“She didn’t like the shape of my muscles,” Kisumi winked. Sousuke wanted to strangle him. This second surprise addition to the harem was far less pleasant than the first.

“I must have left too deep an impression on her growing mind!” Mikoshiba lamented. “Now the only muscles she’ll accept are mine! But I’ve got a great plan for a new member who she’ll definitely fall for. No more mistakes.”

Sousuke growled. He was surrounded by idiots. He let his displeasure be known by stomping out of the chambers. Kisumi pranced after him, his silver jewelry jingling against his mostly-nude body. 

“What did I do wrong?” he said innocently, grabbing Sousuke’s (injured) shoulder and turning him around. The pain caused him to visibly wince. Kisumi had of course done it on purpose. Pissed off, he grabbed the pink-haired boy's bare shoulders and shoved him down onto a nearby pile of pillows. Kisumi hooked an ankle and pulled Sousuke down on top of him. 

“Mm, Sousuke, what must you want to do to me?” Kisumi teased, clasping his hands around Sousuke’s back and arching up against him. The thin silks did nothing to mask the sensation of a very impressive cock rubbing against his own. Arousal and anger spiked in equal measures. 

“What I want is to punch you in the face,” he growled. But Kisumi belonged to Princess Gou and damaging him was the same as spitting on royalty. That didn’t stop him from wanting to. He tried to at least push the creep away, but the other boy was unexpectedly strong and nearly as tall as Sousuke himself.

“That’s not what _I_ want,” Kisumi said, licking Sousuke’s jawline. 

“What you want doesn’t matter.” He’d be damned if he was going to kiss this sonnavabitch, much less touch his dick, even if his body was starting to respond to the muscled and welcoming body underneath him. 

“You can’t wait for _him_ forever,” Kisumi said, as if reading Sousuke’s thoughts. 

The stricken look on his face must have fulfilled the pink-haired harlot’s sadistic urges, because he released his flirty grip and let Sousuke stumble to his feet. But Kisumi kept talking.

“Fine, leave me. I’ll be seducing Haru, if Makoto isn’t mooning over him. Surely you can’t be mad if I keep your darling’s favorite occupied.”

Back in his chamber, Sousuke stewed. With Rin only lavishing affections on Nanase, the harem was dry tinder that had immediately gone up in a blaze of orgies the moment Kisumi had arrived to ignite the thirsty boys. Nightly, Sousuke still heard Rin’s sweet moans, although he never knew when they’d start because he didn’t prep Nanase anymore. But daily now, he was subjected to Kisumi’s hoarse cries intermingled with Nagisa’s squealing or Nitori’s high moans or Makoto’s wailing orgasm sound—and combinations of the above. 

It was driving Sousuke insane, and his cock wasn’t faring any better. Even if he’d wanted to fuck someone—and he did admit that he wanted to fuck Makoto and even that cursed Kisumi—he was not allowed to touch the harem boys outside of work. 

Sitting alone, absently rubbing his clothed dick, he replayed Kisumi’s words in his head. _Waiting._ Was he waiting for something? Waiting for Rin? Ridiculous. He was the one catching up to Rin. 

A traitorous thought flickered through his mind but he extinguished it. 

He let his cock drop and cooled his head with the latest of his military tactics books borrowed from the palace library. The librarian Amakata had gotten to know him when he could barely flip pages for the pain in his shoulder, and slipped him books quite often, even though he wasn’t a scholar or advisor. She also gave him books on herbs. There was an endless supply of information to absorb.

His dream of becoming Rin’s general wasn’t over yet. With his studies he could become an advisor, and commander for Rin. The harem was just a temporary home.


	5. Rin Matsuoka

Heat filled Sousuke’s chest, warmer than the sun punching through the windows of the upper halls he traveled through. The warmth grew from two words given to him by the sergeant. 

_“Thank you.”_

The older blond man with religious motifs cut into his hair had smiled with relief upon receiving the vials of pain-relieving salve. The limp he walked with made clear his intentions for it. 

Sousuke rarely left the confines of the harem, though he was allowed to. He only delivered the salve in person because, well, he didn’t know any official channels to go through. Sergeant Sasabe had heard from him by way of Rei the fuckbuddy soldier (who had a big mouth in Sousuke’s opinion). Sousuke suspected the “reason” Rei was unable to deliver anything that day was that Nagisa was hoping to keep him occupied in Sousuke’s convenient absence.

Seeing the old man’s face light up in gratitude was completely unexpected. 

No one ever thanked Sousuke for what he did. He didn’t expect them too. After all, they were all doing what they did for Prince Rin, and royalty did not thank. But this man had thanked him. And Sousuke was warm inside. 

When he got back to the harem, he opened the curtains of his room a little wider. And didn’t even kick Rei out. 

**

In all honestly, it should have happened sooner. 

Midmorning, a now-familiar loathsome silhouette appeared in his doorway. Nanase was as fully clothed as he got, wearing wide harem pants and a black cropped top. A gold armband, a present from Rin, adorned his wiry bicep. He stood more purposefully than Sousuke was used to seeing.

“Rin wants me inside him tonight,” Nanase announced. He took the fluffer’s stunned silence for understanding. “I told him you do the preparation.”

Sousuke remained frozen, a million things shooting around his brain. It was absolutely inconceivable that the prince would allow someone to stick their unworthy cock into his sacred body. Or was it? Of course Rin could have whatever he wanted, so if he wanted this, then he would have it… Sousuke’s emotions vacillated between extreme jealousy and bald curiosity.

“He’s coming here for prep?” Sousuke managed. Nanase nodded, gave a tiny, quixotic smile, and then walked away. 

That knowing smile haunted Sousuke even as he hurried about putting things in order. He hadn’t made much progress other than arranging and re-arranging the same shelf when Mikoshiba sauntered over. 

“Yo, Sousuke,” he said. “The prince asked for preparation tonight. You up to it?”

There was no way he would leave this all-important task to anyone else. “Yes.”

“Ah, things really are changing around here,” Mikoshiba sighed. “It’s starting to become a real harem now.”

It had always been a real harem, he thought. 

“Anyway, the prince can’t be prepped in here. It’s a workshop. You’re going to set up in the extra room by mine.”

“Understood,” Sousuke agreed. He was immediately relieved about not subjecting Rin to a room that smelled like sex, herbs and overwhelmingly of himself. 

“Get someone to help you move things,” Mikoshiba added, before clasping Sousuke on his good shoulder. “This is a big moment. You can do it.”

“I will,” Sousuke swore, and he’d never meant anything more in his whole life. 

The day passed in a blur, some parts dragging so long every minute felt like an eternity, sometimes an hour flashing by with no warning. He moved mostly everything himself, enlisting Makoto to help with lifting some heavier items. Makoto seemed just as nervous, and fairly distracted. Sousuke chalked it up to the guy’s co-dependency on Nanase. It was a foolish attraction, considering Nanase was the prince’s favorite. Still, it must be difficult for the guy to know Nanase was taking a more active role tonight. 

He choked down a small dinner of lentils, though his nerves suppressed his appetite. He couldn’t stop going over his routine, fretting over every tiny thing that could go wrong. 

Thoughts of Rin played over in his head. Not the imagined pleasure-drenched Rin that he’d fantasized about for so long, but the real one he’d once been close enough to touch as a child. Every detail he could dredge up was a precious piece of a puzzle he’d left unfinished for years. 

When the bell tolled seven, he sat still as a cat upon his chair, ears perked for the first sound of the prince’s arrival. 

A happy commotion bubbled at the entrance; Mikoshiba’s booming voice welcoming the prince. He heard Rin’s return banter and tried to keep his pulse in check. The sounds grew closer, expanding to including the jingling of the jewelry and the soft scuffing of sandals on the tiles, even the swishing of silks against the floor. 

Rin appeared in the doorway like a burst of color onto pale sand, his red eyes blazing with anticipation. He entered with no hesitation, standing with his hands on his hips before Sousuke, who kneeled deeply. The prince’s sandals were woven with gold strands. His toes were painted white and black with fang motifs and Sousuke’s thoughts instantly wondered who cleaned and adorned the prince’s body. 

“Not you too! Get up, at least here I don’t need people bowing to me every three seconds,” Rin sighed. 

Sousuke immediately climbed to his feet, his face flushed with embarrassment for displeasing Rin the instant they were re-united. 

“This is Sousuke, the Deputy Keeper of the Harem, and Royal Fluffer,” Mikoshiba said. “He has prepared all your lovers for the past three years and there is no one better suited to prepare you than him.”

“Sousuke,” Rin ran the word over his tongue, and the fluffer heated hearing his name spoken. The way the prince drew out the syllables thoughtfully made his heart clenched with hope that somehow his name triggered memories of the brief interactions they’d had as children. That hope was muffled when Rin continued. “So I have a Royal Fluffer.”

“Yes, your highness. Leave everything to me.”

“All right! Then I’ll leave you to your pleasures, Your Highness,” Mikoshiba said as he left. “Whatever happens in this room, Sousuke will keep your secrets.”

In the moments that Rin’s eyes trailed the Keeper, Sousuke drank the prince in. Things he already knew were filled out with detail, and things he’d never seen he memorized. Rin was short for a full-grown man, his body somewhere between lean and bulky. His abdomen looked like a wall of muscle, and his pectorals hinted at strong shoulders and biceps. His skin was stunningly pale. The curve of his nose in profile was regal, his lips plump and curled in perpetual amusement, his brow sharp. 

When the door locked, Sousuke gathered his courage. 

“Please allow me to disrobe you, Your Highness,” he said.

“Oh, sure,” Rin said, stepping out of his sandals and shrugging off his robe into Sousuke’s waiting hands. The fabric was lighter than it looked and fell off easily, and Sousuke folded it quickly as his trembling hands could manage. Hair had been shaved off the back of Rin’s neck and Sousuke could see the muscles shift as he shrugged off the white long tunic. The hair was cut so cleanly, Sousuke wondered how often it was cut and who shaved it into a clean edge. He wondered if he could do the same without trembling. 

He caught Rin’s hand in the fabric and lost the next few moments to panic, though his hand untangled quickly.

Rin’s exposed back gleamed with health and was polished with oil to a smooth luster. The smell was foreign to Sousuke and it commanded his senses. It was masculine, earthy and woody, and now unmistakably Rin.

He started again, this time fumbling with the ties on Rin’s skirt. They were silky and soft, and slid around between his fingers. How he ever really got the rest of Rin’s garments off he probably would never know. 

The proud fluffer was a ball of nerves, barely in his head as he laid Rin on the bed and started massaging him. His sexual fantasies hadn’t included the springy touch of Rin’s flesh, or his scent, but most importantly, they hadn’t included Sousuke’s own body, which was unfortunately for everyone, awkwardly present. 

It was strange that when he wasn’t with Rin all he could think of was Rin, but now that he was with the prince, all he could think of was himself. Instead of concentrating on Rin’s smooth back, all he could feel was the roughness of his fingers where they’d been abraded by chemicals. And even though he spent all day inside, his skin was as rough and swarthy as someone who labored in the sun compared to Rin’s flawlessness. He felt the physicality of his own body so keenly that he could hardly process anything else. 

“Shouldn’t you be talking?” Rin’s voice yanked his attention. The sound of it was entirely princely, casual yet firm, just a little annoyed at having to point out something he saw lacking. “The situation seems a little, I dunno, intimate to not be talking. Don’t you talk to the harem?”

“No, my Prince,” Sousuke replied, panic elevating his heart rate. “I just do my job.”

“Well, I think you should talk,” Rin said, looking back at Sousuke. The red eyes were half-lidded with indolent pleasure, gleaming beneath thick lashes.

“You might not like what you hear,” Sousuke said. 

Rin snorted. “Okay, now you’ve got me interested. What do you think you could say that I haven’t heard?”

Sousuke had really dug himself into a hole. He had no idea what to say, and the only thing he knew Rin liked to hear were sex noises. 

“I don’t have anything worthy of you hearing other than my humble instructions. So, spread your legs,” Sousuke said. 

Rin frowned. “I ask you to talk and you command me, Sousuke?” The prince sat up, the muscles of his abdomen gliding over each other in a tantalizing slide. 

“You should listen to someone who’s going to prepare your body,” Sousuke frowned in return. Rin wasn’t thinking properly of himself. 

Rin made some sort of noncommittal noise, his chest muscles tensing to expel a huff of air. 

“I’m the only one who gives commands,” he said, sliding off the bed. “And I don’t like being on my back.” He grinned, exposing terrifyingly sharp teeth. “Lie down.”

It hurt somewhere inside that Rin threw off his expertise so quickly. As if the years he’d spent in training for this moment were completely inconsequential when compared to the importance of the prince’s whims. But Sousuke had once laid down his life for this man, laying down upon a bed shouldn’t have caused him to blink. So he complied.

But Rin didn’t further berate him, or leave the room, or chastise him in any manner. 

“Unfasten your tunic,” Rin commanded. 

Trembling, Sousuke unwound the strings from the hooks that held the front of his shirt together. One by one they fell away, exposing the breadth of his chest. 

“Not bad,” Rin smiled. He unfolded his arms and pulled the fabric away, exposing Sousuke’s shoulders, and when the larger man lifted his arms up, tossing the garment to the floor. Though he was still half-clothed, Sousuke felt completely nude before the prince. It didn’t help that Rin raked his eyes over his chest. 

Then what the prince said next really blew his mind.

“It should start like this,” Rin said as he climbed atop the futon and straddled Sousuke’s face. “Lick my ass.”

“Y-yes, my prince,” Sousuke said. His eye was instantly drawn across the perfect curve of Rin’s butt to the waiting dimple. The area was hairless, the pucker itself pink with a small penumbra. He lifted his tongue to taste the edge of it. 

He’d never imagined orally pleasuring someone in such a way. But as he pressed and swirled his tongue, he found he enjoyed it. Even down here Rin smelled of his personal intoxicating scent. Rin’s enjoyment also became apparent in the growing erection that swayed against Sousuke’s head.

“Don’t worry, I cleaned myself earlier.” Rin said as he gently rocked against Sousuke’s mouth. “You do a good job with the harem. Bet you spread the boys out pretty easily with those giant hands of yours.”

Sousuke whimpered. Rin was talking dirty to him, and that was something he never hoped for in a million years. 

“Hm? You like this too, huh?” Rin teased, an air of genuine pleasure about it. “Good.” 

The prince closed the distance between his hole and Sousuke’s chin, forcing the prone man’s tongue fully inside him. Sousuke grunted at the unexpected penetration, but his cry was muffled by Rin’s slick insides. 

The full erection grazed his head, oh-so-close yet impossibly far. And Rin’s erection wasn’t his concern anyway. He was supposed to be focused on Rin’s entrance. Unless he was given a command, he would tactfully ignore the increasing needy pressure against his face. 

Suddenly Rin let up, grabbing Sousuke’s hair to force their gazes to meet. “Clean your mouth. I’ve got a better use for it. And get whatever ointment stuff you use; it’s time.”

“Yes, my prince,” Sousuke mumbled, and he shakily got up. All of his blood had fled to his cock, leaving precious little to power brain functions or motor control. He found a rag and toothbrush, and quickly wiped the traces of Rin’s ass from his mouth. What he saw when he turned back took his breath away. 

Rin knelt with one hand on his cock and another hand tracing the path where Sousuke’s tongue had just been. He looked to be enjoying himself quite a bit.

“I’m waiting for you,” he said.

Sousuke grabbed his ointment and climbed back under Rin. If someone condensed all the rock on a mountain or all the diamonds of a thousand fine rings, the resulting stone could not have been harder than Sousuke’s dick at the suggestion that Rin wanted more of him. It made him burn and tremble, facts which must have been obvious when Rin lifted Sousuke’s jaw to accept the royal cock. 

He opened his lips obediently, letting Rin run the head of his member over Sousuke’s lips. Once that short game ended, Rin tapped on his jaw and pressed the whole of the head into his mouth. Now it was Sousuke’s turn to seek pleasure, lapping at the salty, fleshy intrusion that filled his mouth. He tucked his gums over his teeth, letting the dick slide in as Rin willed. Inch by inch, his mouth was taken over by Rin’s cock until he felt the base on his lips and he could hardly breathe. 

Rin’s hand moved to the back of Sousuke’s head and forced him to release some of the length, only to slowly take it back in. Sousuke’s eyes were closed but he heard soft sounds of pleasure from the prince’s mouth. That was entirely new—he hadn’t been able to hear such light noises before—and therefore utterly arousing. 

He let Rin get them both lost in a haze of push and pull. He forgot what he was there to do, no, he knew he was there for Rin’s pleasure and that’s what he gave. The position they were in was quite intimate. Sousuke trusted Rin not to choke him with his dick (but if that’s what he wanted he would have been hard-pressed to stop it from happening), and Rin trusted Sousuke to let his mouth be fucked wide open. 

At first he didn’t understand the hand pulling on his, but as his fingers were dragged towards his ointments, he remembered his job. He almost choked for a second, but although tears came to his eyes, he didn’t tense up on or bite the dick in his mouth. 

“You’re pretty good at that,” Rin said, and Sousuke instantly knew he was talking about his skill in opening the jar one-handed and slicking his fingers, not the blowjob.

Rin twitched as said fingers slicked on the first ointment. Sousuke dipped inside shallowly. Again, as always, forever, building up a familiarity was tantamount to successful prep. Although getting blown at the same time helped the receiver.

“Hey, Sousuke, will it hurt?” He pulled out so the other man could answer. Sousuke’s throat felt raw and empty. 

“No,” he was never so glad to have fingered dozens of assholes. “I will make sure of it.”

“How?” Rin had a million questions. 

“This oil will soften the area,” he said. “The slickness will help ease the entry of foreign objects.”

And then, suddenly, he added, “I will never do anything to hurt you.”

“You better not,” Rin smiled. He put his dick against Sousuke’s lips, which the fluffer happily accepted. 

Meanwhile, Sousuke slipped his first finger inside. He could tell that Rin barely felt it, not at least until he’d fit two knuckles in. The halting thrusts into his mouth and short gasps were his only indication that the prince felt something. 

He knew from experience that this was not pain. It was merely strangeness. If Rin liked the soft touch of being rimmed, than the thickness and solidness of his finger was likely causing his body confusion. Nothing but time and dicksucking could make the strangeness right. 

So slowly it all went, but time gave Sousuke confidence, as did Rin’s increasingly feral grunts of pleasure. By the time he stuffed four fingers inside, Rin was writhing around him, begging to be filled, begging to fuck Sousuke’s face—both of which were kind of going on. 

This peak moment was where Sousuke usually stopped. In this case, only Rin had the authority to make anything stop, but Sousuke hinted by removing his fingers. 

It was the wrong move.

“Don’t even think about stopping,” Rin growled. He didn’t let Sousuke use his mouth to explain that the body could only handle so much arousal before coming. So Sousuke refused to put his hands back. 

Rin glared and pinched Sousuke’s nose. The fluffer panicked instantly—with throat and nose plugged there was no way to breathe. A few moments into the struggle, Rin seemed to regret causing Sousuke pain, and removed both pinchhold and cock. 

Sousuke sputtered for breath. 

“You seem like you’d be in better shape than that,” Rin said, his own breath full and heavy. 

“My prince- koff - this is where I stop with the other boys.”

“I told you I give the commands. But yeah, I think it’s time to switch anyway.”

What Rin meant by that became immediately clear when he pulled down Sousuke’s pants to set his painfully swollen erection bobbing free. 

“My prince!” Sousuke gasped. 

“Give me that ointment,” Rin commanded. As he squatted above Sousuke’s dick, he slathered the stiff flesh with goopy gel. The places where Rin’s fingers touched ached with desire. Sousuke knew what was coming and yet couldn’t quite process it. 

Rin wanted him inside. 

He wanted Sousuke’s dick. 

He wanted to be fucked by Sousuke’s dick. 

“If I can take this huge thing,” Rin said, straddling his cock. The head of his dick pressed against the open hole. “Then Haru isn’t going to be a problem.”

And then there was no time to think, or hurt or remember _Ah yes Nanase!_ , because Rin was trying to fit a dick inside himself for the first time. 

And Sousuke was losing his virginity at that very moment, to the one person in the whole world he wanted to be intimate with. As Rin fit the head in with a beautiful gasp, Sousuke finally moved to the same playing field Rin had been competing on for the past few years without him. 

Now they were together, united by this act. An intimate act of love in the last place that such acts were allowed to be intimate. At this moment, Nagisa and Kisumi were probably listening at the doorway, maybe even touching each other. Deeper in the harem, Nanase was waiting patiently to commit this same act, with the same man who engaged all of Sousuke’s being at this moment. 

Rin showed no concern for any of that. He only showed interest in the apparent extreme pleasure he was deriving from being filled by cock. He moaned as he slid up and down a section of its slick length. Rin’s insides were soft and slick, and the only reason Sousuke hadn’t come, and of this he was absolutely sure, was because Rin hadn’t commanded him to. 

He let the prince ride him, gingerly at first, then with more vigor as he grew ever more accustomed to getting pleasure through penetration. Sousuke dared not touch, only watch in rapt fascination and intense lust at the prince who was using him. 

“Use me,” it fell from his lips. 

“I give the commands,” Rin managed. He was near the edge, his hips falling into a wobbly rhythm designed for his maximum pleasure. 

And then it happened. Rin came. 

The prince’s jaw went slack, his body clenched and he gave the most beautiful cry. It was unlike any Sousuke had ever heard, and he was pretty sure he had memorized the prince’s entire catalog. It reverberated in his soul with blinding emotion, cracking his heart with the force of its passion. He’d be hearing echoes of it for the rest of his life. 

Rin’s strong arms held him up as he pulled himself off Sousuke’s cock. Then, for some unknown reason, he looked at the sweaty man below him and sat down on his cock again. It didn’t work, his twitching hole rejected the sloppy penetration. 

“Don’t—” Sousuke stopped himself. It cut him deeply to say this, but, “If you force yourself, the tissue will tear.”

“Quiet, I know that,” Rin said. He seemed uncertain of what to do next, eying the offending erection. “Do something about that.”

“Ah,” Sousuke complied. It felt strange to hold himself in his hand, unnatural, as if inside Rin were the only place pleasure resided. But Rin commanded him to come, and so he pumped furiously. He was so close to the edge already, but the change in friction made it feel like he was starting all over at zero. 

“You’re pretty good-looking,” Rin said, doing things out of order and how he pleased. He leaned over and kissed Sousuke. 

Rin’s hot mouth against his advanced his arousal track, jumping ahead to the part where his balls clenched and his whole body electrified in preparation for climax. He blew past the edge and exploded into orgasm. 

Semen splattered against his stomach and Rin hummed into their kiss. He was throbbing with pleasure, heartbeat so thick and loud he could barely hear. He only noticed the resurgence of sound when Rin stopped kissing him. 

Apparently, the whole reason Rin had made him jerk off was so that he could sprawl over Sousuke in a post-orgasm cuddle without the nuisance of an erection between them. It was not an embrace—Sousuke felt like a glorified cushion for the prince. 

A happy cushion. 

The sated sprawl lasted much less time than he would have liked. Before Sousuke was fully with his senses, Rin demanded to be cleaned and dressed. Again before the haze cleared, Sousuke found himself kneeling before the fully-clothed prince, presenting him with an elegant jar of ointment. 

“I was just going to use Haru’s, but this looks better,” Rin accepted it. 

“Please take care of yourself,” Sousuke said, although he wanted to say _Please think of me when you use it._

“I won’t be needing it tonight, though. Taking another dick doesn’t sound like much fun when I’ve had yours,” Rin said. It was a factual statement, not a compliment. Rin didn’t flatter.

“I’m honored,” Sousuke said. 

“You just do your job, right? Well, I’m looking forward to more of that,” Rin smiled. With a flutter of black and white robes, he exited the harem. 

**

Sousuke went to bed that night thinking many things. An excitement that he hadn’t felt in years elevated his spirits. His plans of becoming general seemed so passé. He let himself believe that Rin truly needed him as he was now, and the future was going to be much brighter than he’d ever hoped. 

He was completely wrong.


	6. Escape

The next morning, Sousuke felt entirely self-indulgent, allowing himself to wake late and leisurely don clothes. Basking in satisfaction, he gave into a dark need to see Nanase lonely and put out.

The sullen boy wasn’t in his chambers. Neither was he in the chambers of his greatest comforter, Makoto. It turned out Sousuke wasn’t the only one searching for someone.

“Where’s Makoto?” Sousuke’s pink-haired nemesis popped up behind him, grabby hands on his bad shoulder. “I wanted to play with him this morning!”

“Don’t touch me,” Sousuke growled. “I don’t know where your boyfriend is.”

“That’s odd, I can’t find him anywhere,” Kisumi flitted around, for once interested in something besides picking on Sousuke. He stopped short. “Uh-oh.”

Red alert. Sousuke quickly strode over to join Kisumi looking into Nitori’s room. 

The silver-haired boy was bound and gagged with silks in the corner. 

“Nitori!” Sousuke ran over to the shaken and startled boy. Dried tears stained the boy’s face and he winced as Sousuke wrenched off expertly tied knots. He tried to talk as Sousuke struggled to remove the gag.

“Help me!” Nitori blurted as soon as his mouth was free. “They tied me up!”

“Obviously,” Sousuke said. “Who tied you up? Was it thieves?!”

“No, it was _them_!” Nitori wailed. “Haruka and Makoto!”

In that instant, Sousuke’s blood ran cold. 

“Kisumi!” he bellowed. 

The flirt bobbed his head in. “No one’s anywhere, I’m afraid. No Makoto, no Haru, no Nagisa.”

“They ran away!” Nitori sniffled. “I heard them at the window and so they must have run away.”

Sousuke swore. He had to tell Mikoshiba. “Kisumi, untie Nitori and wake up the Head Keeper. Tell him who’s missing.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Chase after them.”

He ran to the window he’d seen Nanase pining at so many times. Two floors below lay a discarded handmade rope. It was clear they’d left out the window, but when Sousuke sprinted down to the tiled courtyard, the trail ended cold on the flat flagstones. There were multiple exits from the courtyard but his knowledge of the palace was spotty enough that he hadn’t any idea where the two exits on the right led. 

So he ran down them. The first was a maze of hallways and small, boring administrative-type rooms. The second was a short passage to a dead end. Frustrated, he tore off down the hall that led to the library, looking for any exits that he’d overlooked on his many treks. 

Whether due to fear or actual lack, he couldn’t find any trace of the escapees. Instead he found himself wincing and catching his breath against a wall. 

An idea that should not have manifested crossed his mind, and he immediately took action. As he sprinted towards Rin’s chambers, he knew he should turn back. One moment of intimacy gave him no right to approach the prince. More than that, what would he say? That he’d lost Rin’s property? How in the world would Rin forgive him? And yet he threw the door open. 

The wide, lavish chamber contained a pillow-stuffed bed on a raised platform. Rin slept languidly across rich red sheets, his arm caught carelessly in the creamy undertunic he’d worn the night before. His skin gleamed in the bright morning light. The beautiful sight took Sousuke’s breath away. He was almost too awestruck to walk forward and reach out a hand to disturb the prince’s slumber. Without any other recourse, he rallied his courage and walked over to caress the prince’s forearm.

Rin’s eyes shot open, and he pulled a knife from below a pillow. With a smooth stroke, he sliced Sousuke across the belly. The pain was sharp and uncomfortable, and he instantly collapsed, blood welling up along the wound. It couldn’t have been fatal, but it ached and Sousuke cried out. 

“Sousuke?” The prince’s brows knitted in confusion. 

“Is this how you treat all your servants?” Sousuke gritted his teeth. The pain made him lose his decorum. Honestly, first Rin ruined his shoulder, now he was trying to slit his belly? The tyrant was nothing but trouble for him. 

“My servants don’t sneak up on me,” Rin replied, irritated. 

“I had...urgent news,” Sousuke winced, suddenly conscious that he might be about to face far worse pain. 

“You just wanted more of my body, didn’t you?” Rin accused. 

“That’s not it!” Sousuke growled. Blood seeped out with the exertion and stained his hands. 

“I’m removing you from my chambers. Guards!” Rin called. 

“Nanase escaped from the harem last night,” Sousuke got out.

“Who— Haru?!” Rin exclaimed. 

“Yes.”

“Haru,” Rin’s face set in a line, determination stiffening his features. 

The guards rushed into the room and carted Sousuke away. He caught a glimpse of Rin throwing off his flowing palace robes and opening a large wardrobe full of armor before he was dragged away completely. 

**

If the harem seemed boring and confining, it was simply because he’d never been in the dark, featureless dungeon. A small amount of light filtered in from high windows, but the place was otherwise unlit. Iron bars divided a plain stone room into about six cells. None of them held any prisoners, so he was alone with nothing to do and no one to talk to. 

First aid occupied quite a bit of his time initially. Without anything other than the clothes on his back, a water cup and the hay meant to be his bed and latrine, there was little he could do other than wash the wound. Blood remained caked on his hands, but he couldn’t waste water on it. 

After the adrenaline wore off, he had plenty of time to think, and his thoughts spiraled downward quickly. 

Imprisonment was what he deserved, he mused. Given how angry Rin was, he’d probably be put to death. How poetic to pay with his life for the immoral intimacy he’d experienced. He would atone with death for overstepping his bounds and fucking the royal ass. Haru had gotten away with his freedom and Sousuke would take the fall. It didn’t seem fair, but if Rin were the judge he would accept any punishment. Still, the pain in his heart at being so utterly disposable to the prince ached as bad as the wound in his gut. 

Some time later, the royal torturer interrogated him about the escape conspiracy. Of course Sousuke knew nothing about it, but that answer didn’t please the interrogator. After hours of questions and beatings, he was tossed to the floor of his cell with more than just his shoulder and stomach aching. As he curled up against himself he broke into tears, not just from the sheer physical agony of the torture he’d endured but from the fresh reminder of Rin’s complete disregard for him. 

As something like days passed, his body was a mass of pain and his mind ached with betrayal. His love for Rin grew narrower, the tendrils of openness and excitement stunted by pain and confusion. But then, something entirely unexpected happened. Horns heralding a military troops’ return rent asunder his sleep. It was late at night; the trumpeting must have woken up the whole palace. 

Shortly, the creaking wooden entrance opened, and soldiers brought in a familiar figure. The man was dressed in harem pants and a black crop top. His face was hidden by a turban and scarf, but that did nothing to conceal his identity from Sousuke. 

“Nanase,” he growled. 

The lean figure gave no acknowledgement, and let himself be shut in the cell across from Sousuke’s.

The rage inside Sousuke grew, thickening and flowing until it could no longer be contained. 

“Nanase, you piece of shit! You ruined everything!” His rain of insults spewed out at the listless figure. “You thief! You betrayer! You made Rin worry! You made Rin mad!”

No response. 

“You betrayed him! You were his favorite! You had his heart and you threw it away like it was nothing, you worthless excuse for a whore!”

“I am not a whore,” Nanase said, fixing Sousuke with a familiar defiant expression.

Some of Sousuke’s steam evaporated, maybe at the familiarity of Haru’s insolent responses. “All you had to do was stay here.”

“All he had to do was set me free,” Nanase argued. “I asked.”

“You’re not allowed to be free,” Sousuke spat. “Freedom means nothing. As long as you’re in the habitable lands of this world, you belong to the prince. You can’t be free from him. No one is. All you do by rejecting him is make him angry.”

When Nanase simply sat down and looked away, Sousuke realized he was strangling the bars of the cell with his fists. Bits of rust flaked off when he released them. Still trembling, he sat down as well. 

And then time passed. It was impossible to let go of the hatred he felt towards his rival, but suffering no further aggravations did smooth the burning anger into a simmering band of annoyance. The sun went down; Sousuke slept. 

Now that Nanase had been found, the interrogator had no use for jarring him awake. Instead he was awoken by his name being called softly. 

He blinked, confused. But there was no mistake, it was Nanase calling his name. 

“What?” Sousuke grumbled, not very coherent but working to erect his walls of annoyance. 

“Is Makoto here?”

The defensive walls shot up, and Sousuke was both perturbed and confused at the same time. 

“No. He escaped with you.”

“Oh.”

Nanase sunk back into himself, and Sousuke tried to return to sleep but his blood pressure had spiked too high. He couldn’t help wondering why Nanase had asked him about Makoto. Had they been separated? 

“Escape not go like you planned?” Sousuke asked. 

Nanase didn’t respond. 

Two could play the silent game, and they were both so good at it that not another word was spoken for several hours. That didn’t mean he wasn’t thinking. It was a surprise that Nanase was worrying about Makoto’s whereabouts. The big man’s affections for the prince’s favorite had been so obvious that no one, Sousuke included, had noticed Nanase’s feelings for Makoto were just as strong. Whether or not they were romantic, it was hard to say. 

It really was the important question, though. 

If Nanase _wasn’t_ romantically interested in Makoto, but still cared for him as a friend, then news of his friend’s safety could convince Nanase to stay at the palace. 

If Nanase was interested in Makoto romantically, then it was likely going to be Makoto’s head. No way to work a happy ending on that one. Actually, Sousuke thought, Makoto was doomed anyway, as he’d been the one to infiltrate the harem and grant escape to not just Nanase but also Nagisa. Conspiring against the crown meant death. 

Sousuke felt bad for Makoto, the lovesick puppy. If Rin had been the unwilling courtesan and Nanase the prince, Sousuke would’ve done what Makoto did. In a heartbeat. But Nanase would make a shit prince and Makoto a squeamish fluffer; plus that wasn’t reality anyway, so who cared. 

Still… He couldn’t help feeling they all deserved a better fate. Himself included.


	7. Confessions

A few hours later Sousuke awoke to proper light and guards pulling Nanase to his feet in the adjoining cell. 

“The last guy on duty heard your little spat,” the guard cackled as he tossed the former favorite into Sousuke’s cell. “This little shit’s run us all through the ringer. If you rough him up a bit while we’re not looking, I don’t think anyone will complain.”

“He’s royal property,” Sousuke replied. “No thanks.”

“Then don’t leave marks,” the guard laughed.

Sousuke could tell the men were listening for a while, because he heard their laughter and jangling keys as he and Nanase sat unmoving. The lively tones of their conversation just up the stairs slowly faded as Sousuke failed to take their bait. Silence droned.

A chance glance at Nanase’s face revealed sorrow.

Sousuke wondered if the earnestness of Nanase’s face was a draw for Rin. The boy’s face was so flawless and smooth, it telegraphed emotions the way a calm pond rippled with the plunking of a stone. There was nothing hidden, Nanase’s expressions so clear that he always turned away in embarrassment, unable to hide his emotions. Sousuke was the opposite: like a frozen lake. Nothing moved; he was incapable of showing his real emotions. 

“Finally pissed the prince off, huh,” Sousuke gloated. 

Much to Sousuke’s surprise, Nanase walked over to him. “I’m sorry for what Rin did to you,” Nanase said. “This is my fault.”

Sousuke’s gloat shrank. There was that honesty at work. 

Unexpectedly, Nanase reached out and touched his shoulder. The bad one. But unlike spiteful touches of the past, this one was gentle. Apologetic. 

“Don’t,” Sousuke said. Even gentle touch was painful, but Nanase’s pity was excruciating. 

Nanase’s fingers fluttered down across his chest, hesitating over the exposed wound. Then they skittered lower, hovering over his pants. 

“You can’t be serious,” Sousuke said. 

“I want to apologize,” Nanase stated. “You like this sort of thing.” 

Sousuke prickled. “No. It’s my job.”

“But you’ll get in trouble with the guards if you don’t,” Nanase said. 

“You forget you belong to Rin,” Sousuke threw in as much venom as he could. “What peons say or think doesn’t matter to you, me, or Rin.”

Nanase refused to be put in his place. “My body is mine to give. It doesn’t belong to Rin.”

“I’d give everything for him,” Sousuke responded quickly. 

Nanase reverted to his thousand-yard stare. But this time, Sousuke didn’t feel he was being pitied. If anything, it seemed Nanase understood that he faced a rival.

**

There was not much in life Sousuke couldn’t tie to Rin. His choice of careers, his injury, his current job. Even the people he’d slept with.

But somehow, this rivalry with Nanase felt like something private and personal between the two of them. It was not unlike how he privately treasured the smile from old man Sasabe at the infirmary. 

That small part of him was indignant when guards tumbled down the stairs to collect Nanase. To his surprise, they collected him as well. 

Hands bound behind their backs, he and Nanase were thrown roughly to the floor of the prince’s bedchamber. Sousuke went down hard, pain blooming in nasty tendrils from the impact against his shoulder. Nanase fared better, stumbling but not falling. 

From the floor he watched as Rin stomped over, his rage-filled face equal in hue to his red hair. It was clear he’d just returned. He wore clothing for outdoor use, though it still was flowing linen in the style of desert nomads. The white fabric was dusty with the dirt of hard horseback riding. Leather accents decorated his frame, and his feet were clad in leather slippers. His purposeful strides reverberated through the floor tiles into Sousuke’s jaw. 

“Haru!” he yanked Nanase forward by his hair. 

Sousuke didn’t want to watch. He’d never seen Rin so fiercely angry before, and it wasn’t a flattering sight. The prince was a spiteful mess, his hair in disarray and his harsh teeth on full display. 

“You’re not allowed to leave! We talked about that!”

“I’m not yours.”

Rin continued to berate Nanase, increasing the pull on his hair, and now fisting the tight garment across the other’s chest even as Nanase stared angry daggers back at him. Sousuke distracted himself with getting into a sitting position without the use of his arms. The exertion made his belly wound sear with prickling pain. 

“How could you do this to me when I love you?!” Rin yelled. 

Sousuke immediately wished he’d stayed on the floor, because he felt that emotional blow deep in his gut. To hear the prince actually validate his affections for a mere harem boy was to admit the casual exclusion Sousuke had felt since entering the room—and since long before that. 

“My prince!” Sousuke called out. “You’d say that to a commoner?!”

“Shut up, Sousuke,” Rin spat. “You’re not needed yet. Dammit, Haru, why won’t you say anything?”

“Yamazaki had nothing to do with it,” Nanase said. 

“As if I didn’t know that! He would never betray me, unlike you!”

“But you imprisoned him anyway.”

“It’s my right to keep order. You don’t understand how difficult it is to manage a kingdom. A whole fucking kingdom.”

“Then you don’t need to monitor me too. My heart won’t betray you.”

“You always say that! Just tell me you’ll stay, Haru.”

“No.”

“No?” Rin’s tone grew cold. “Then you really don’t understand why I don’t want you to leave. Sousuke.” The last part was a command. 

“Yes, my prince,” he bowed, finally having wobbled to his feet during the argument. 

“Prepare him,” Rin commanded, violently releasing Haru’s hair and shirt. “For you.”

“Rin!” Haru protested frantically.

“If you don’t want to be mine, then anyone should be fine. It could be a lot worse. Sousuke’s good. Not as good as me, but you’ll get off.” He took his place on the bed and gestured at the end of it. “Do it here so I can watch.”

“No,” Sousuke said. 

The full brunt of the confrontational atmosphere suddenly focused on him. 

“That’s an order from _your prince_ ,” Rin said coldly.

“I refuse,” Sousuke said. His heart was panicking, urging him to recant. But if he’d learned anything from Nanase, it was that you could stand up to the prince and he would still want you. If he loved you. 

Rin slid off the bed and stalked toward Sousuke.

“Your job is to serve me in bed.”

“My job is only to prepare others to sleep with you,” Sousuke countered.

“Then what was that the other day?”

“It was because I want to be with you!”

Sousuke’s heart sunk at the unexpected confession. Now that he’d given his treasured feelings to Rin, they were likely to be discarded as an unwanted burden. Yet he couldn’t stop; his soul leaked out through his mouth in heartfelt words. “You don’t remember… You never came to check up on me. I was your body double during the assassination attempt when you were eight. I was the one blown up instead of you. I was in the hospital for months and you never came. I’ve never forgotten you. I’ve never stopped caring about you.” He finished, “I never meant to tell you any of that just now. You don’t need the burden of my wasted life on your consciousness.”

“Out,” Rin said. “Get out. Go back to the harem and I’ll deal with you later.”

“You don’t want to hear this, but—”

“Out!”

“—but I would never betray you! Or run away from you!”

“Dammit, Sousuke, I know all that, just leave!”

Firm hands pushed Sousuke toward the door. He afforded one last desperate look at the room—Rin stomping back to his bed, Haru watching with rapt attention—then twirled around and headed back to the harem. 

**

After what he’d said to Rin, and after what had happened... Sousuke figured his life was over. Yet minutes turned into hours into days, and no gaurds came to collect him. He’d been left alone. He hadn’t heard any news. Not even Kisumi or Nitori had come to pester him. Could have been because his door was locked shut. 

Two days later, a splashing noise diverted Sousuke from the very important business of staring forlornly at the ceiling. It confused him. 

That splash meant one thing: Nanase was using the pool. 

If Nanase was swimming, clearly he wasn’t hanged for his betrayal or even locked up somewhere. Apparently Rin had some forgiveneness in his heart. But Sousuke wasn’t about to get up and go ask, so he listened to the splashing. After some time, the splatter of water droplets on tile trailed Nanase as he wandered back out of the harem. Presumably to Rin’s room, where the prince must have now installed his lover to keep him close. Rin and Haru were together: end of story, end of harem.

Sousuke wondered how long it would be until he was officially let go or transferred to Gou’s harem. 

A timid knock on the door interrupted his musings. It was Nitori, looking more worried than usual. 

“Um, can I come in?” his posture was so closed in on itself that it looked like he might curl into a silver-haired ball.

Sosuke opened the door, silently inviting him inside. 

“Is it true that Nanase is living in the prince’s room now?”

“Don’t ask me,” Sousuke shrugged. He didn’t want to admit it; anyway it was true that he he had literally no idea. 

“Oh, I thought you would know. I thought Nanase stopped by your room before he left. Mikoshiba said he’s not staying in the harem anymore. But Rin likes him too much to kick him out, right? That would be horrible!”

“Rin wouldn’t do that.” 

“I didn’t think so! He’s not that sort of person. But…”

“You want to know if the prince still wants a harem.”

“Yes. That’s exactly it!”

Sousuke had to think for a moment. “The prince has a passionate heart.”

“I know! I know he’s wonderful, friendly and so kind. But if he’s in love…”

“Rin loves everyone,” Sousuke said. _But Nanase’s the only one who he loves beyond all reason_.

Nitori’s face brightened. “I knew you’d have the answer. You know him so well.”

“We’re not close,” Sousuke scoffed. 

“I won’t worry,” Nitori smiled. “I’ll go work on my writing, so I can read poems to Rin. And write down his thoughts!”

“Sure,” Sousuke said. 

Nitori’s optimism gave him hope. If Nitori could keep his faith, then maybe so could Sousuke. He’d keep doing his job under the assumption that Rin would one day need his services again. 

As luck, or perhaps practicality would have it, days later Rin called on Sousuke. Or rather, Rin showed up at Sousuke’s chambers. It was mid-afternoon and the sun reflecting off the bathing pool cast a heavenly glow around the prince’s robed silhouette. His creamy inner robes shone like polished ivory and his gold jewelry sparkled like the sun itself. His bare feet padded into Sousuke’s room, his robe gliding behind him.

“Yo, Sousuke,” he said.

Sousuke froze in his tracks, as Rin had caught him during the approximately two minutes in the whole day he’d been standing up. Rin halted, then ran his hand through his hair nervously. 

“Sorry.”

The prince’s words were so uncharacteristically humble that Sousuke couldn’t even respond. 

“You don’t have to look at me like that!” Rin snapped.

“I can’t help looking at you when you’re acting nice like that.”

Rin walked over, the glare sharpening his already knifelike features. Suddenly one strong, muscular leg whipped out of his robe and kicked Sousuke.

“That’s for staying in the palace all these years and never telling me you were here.”

It would be pointless to remind the young ruler that he’d never gone looking for Sousuke either, so he grunted instead. 

“I do remember you. A little. You were too tall, even back then,” Rin said. Sousuke wondered if more was coming, but then the topic changed. 

“Do you have more of that balm? Me and Haru used up everything.”

It felt like an iron fetter clamped around his heart to be so easily pushed aside. But what could he do but obey? He silently handed over a jar.

“No, a smaller one.”

Sousuke frowned. All he had smaller were single-use items. “No, I won’t give it to you smaller.”

“Idiot! You think I don’t know they’re only good for one night? Read the mood. I want to come back here.”

Before Sousuke could respond, the prince was smiling at him as he sauntered out the door. 

He didn’t know what to make of the prince’s newfound interest, but he did know that he was forgiven. And when he looked inside himself, for better or worse, he knew he was going to go along with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Amberemerald for the beta from the beginning through this chapter!


	8. Some Dicking Around

As the days went by, it was impossible for Sousuke to deny that he and Rin were unexpectedly becoming friends of a sort. Nearly as impossible to deny that the closeness made Sousuke fall even more madly in love with the prince. Their scars and new wounds still rent the space between them, but it was no longer impossible to reach out.

True to his word, Rin returned the next day after he first leveled with Sousuke. And then every day. The prince opened up a bit more, talking about the past. It seemed that around the point when they’d separated, the redhead had been fast-tracked into taking on actual ruling duties. His grandmother, the queen for many years before Rin’s father’s brief rule, saw much potential in him. He’d done his best to match that potential, no matter the isolation that increased studies and the brutal dip into politics forced on him. 

“I never realized,” Rin said one day, “that the harem was the one place I felt really free.”

“That’s cheesy.”

“Shut up!” Rin kicked Sousuke. The two were sitting in one of the unoccupied rooms of the harem. Though unused, it was still fully decked out in fine cloths and pillows. Rin lounged, his legs spread indecently. The edge of his loincloth pulled Sousuke’s eyes, taunting him. He didn’t want to lose the time Rin spent with him by overstepping his bounds and angering the prince.

And yet, he couldn’t help wanting to be closer.

“How was it, really?” Sousuke asked. “Sitting on the throne when you were a kid.”

“Shitty,” Rin replied. “You get overwhelmed. All the people all the time, none of them are your friends or even friendly.”

Sousuke grunted in assent, even though he had no idea how it was. “Is it still like that?”

“No,” Rin grinned toothily. “They’re too afraid to push me around now. Hell, people _admire_ the Prince of Samezuka.”

“I admired you first,” Sousuke said, without thinking. Rin’s face looked stupid as he processed the compliment. It was cute. “From when I first saw you. I wanted to stand beside you.”

“No one stands besides a prince,” Rin laughed. “The first time I saw you again, you kneeled before me anyway.”

“What position would you like me?” Sousuke asked, innuendo fully implied and fully regretted once it was out of his mouth.

“Stand up,” Rin said sternly, sensuality seemingly dissipating like fog meeting glass, pulling himself to his feet, posture proud and straight. “Just do it,” he added when the other hesitated. 

Sousuke stood, his height giving him full view of Rin’s bright red hair and brilliant, beaming smile. “You’re standing beside me now. Don’t blow it.”

For so many years had he suppressed his emotions and strangled his expectations that the moment passed him completely by. Rin’s face soured. He kicked Sousuke again—he was going to have a permanent mark on his calf soon enough from all the abuse. 

“Kiss me, you idiot,” Rin scowled. 

Sousuke’s heart squeezed, driving the breath from his lungs. Even when petulant, Rin was beautiful. The fluffer wanted so desperately to kiss the troublesome redhead he’d idealized and fantasized about for so long. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t on his terms—absolutely nothing between them had ever been on his terms. 

He cautiously placed a hand against Rin’s cheek. The stupid hand was so large and clumsy, his knuckles heavy like a gorilla’s against the other’s flawless, pale skin. He tucked his palm under Rin’s jaw, fingers cupping a gold-studded ear. With the other thumb he brushed across Rin’s soft, plump lips. 

“What the hell, I told you to kiss me!” Rin yelled.

“I’m going to!” Sousuke yelled back. 

“If you want to do it, then hurry up!”

“It’s because I want to do it so badly that I’m taking my time!”

With that Rin scrunched up his face and launched himself at the Deputy Keeper. Their mouths crushed together. The teeth and heat and arousal came in a rush. The prince refused to let up, pressing them together with intense passion. 

Rin moaned; the sound electrified Sousuke from the tips of his toes to his ears. He knew that sound from years hearing it from the next room over. The beautiful, magical sound of Rin’s pleasure. He didn’t dare look but he could feel Rin’s skin heating up as the prince claimed Sousuke’s shoulders, then hair, with firm grasps, and he devoured what remained of Sousuke’s startled breath with possessive kisses. 

Yet somehow it was Sousuke who slid his hands into the untidy opening of the prince’s robe and first touched the other’s taut abdomen, sliding his fingers towards unguarded hips. He had touched many bodies, but none were as perfectly formed as the prince’s. Before, he hadn’t been allowed to explore, so he indulged himself as best as he could without boring his lover. 

Rin, for his part, had little patience, ripping open his own sash and pressing Sousuke’s meandering hand against the stiff flesh in his loincloth. He grinned ferally as he drew the other’s hand underneath the cloth and into contact with his genitals. Once again, Sousuke didn’t need to see to know the perfection of Rin’s member. He stroked the prince clumsily, his hand awkwardly caught between heat and cloth. 

His terrible technique was accepted, rewarded even with the prince’s hand grabbing his own dick. 

“So damn big,” Rin hissed. 

“Sorry,” Sousuke said, the word little more than a deep huff. 

“I want to take it again,” Rin grinned. “Lay down.” Poor Sousuke’s heart ground to a startled halt. 

“But,” Sousuke protested as he obeyed. His dick pointed up as straight and thick as a tower. His worries were quickly waylaid when Rin produced the small vial of lubricant he’d procured just earlier that day. He tossed it to the bigger man.

“You are my fluffer, are you not?” he grinned. “Treat me.”

As Rin crawled up Sousuke’s prone figure, likely to duplicate how their encounter had gone previously, the larger man flipped the script. With his good arm, he grabbed Rin and reversed their positions. Naturally, the prince protested, but Sousuke said,

“I do better work like this.”

And work he did. By the time he had gently massaged the prince’s all-too-eager opening, it was glistening with gel and softly swollen. Sousuke slid two fingers in easily, adding a third with little trouble. He lavished ministrations on Rin’s cock, tonguing the soft, springy flesh and lightly stroking it. He was proud to say that the prince responded very enthusiastically. 

He felt a tug on his shoulder, and Rin pulled him in for a searing kiss. Situated between the prince’s legs, he cautioned a rub with his cock. The prince welcomed the friction; he was already far beyond the point of arousal where Sousuke would have stopped with the harem boys. 

That gave Sousuke pride. To have passed that point in this casual setting meant that they were having sex. No longer a spectator or a coach, Sousuke was a full participant in Rin’s sexual pleasure. 

Clearly Rin had been letting Haru fuck him, from the way he blindly managed alignment of Sousuke’s dick with his hole. The prince relaxed himself, letting the larger man’s cock rest on the slick rim of his entrance. With a squeeze from the prince’s legs, Sousuke drove forward into that tight, welcoming cavity. 

“Yes,” the prince whispered. “Come on, Sousuke, come on.”

Sousuke could say nothing. There weren’t words left in his head, just too many feelings to sort. _I love you Amazing Nothing better in the whole world_ all exploding into fireworks in his head.

Rin moaned with abandoned. Conditioned to come from sound alone, Sousuke’s dick swelled. Its heavy weight dragged along Rin’s smooth insides, further condensing his pleasure into a bright ball that squeezed his heart.

“I’m going to come,” Sousuke rasped. 

“Me first,” Rin moaned. 

Whether it was a matter of pride or he was just a master at his own arousal, the prince spasmed in orgasm. Sousuke couldn’t help being distracted as the prince’s eyes rolled back in his head, his body flushed and white fluid shot from his cock. Sousuke pulled out as soon as the twitching subsided. 

Sexually frustrated, he sat down, hoping it wouldn’t take too long to lose his erection. 

“Stupid Sousuke,” sweat plastered a shock of errant red hair to Rin’s forehead as he turned to look at his lover. “You were supposed to come inside me.”

“Sorry,” Sousuke said. 

He slicked himself up with more lube, and quickly brought himself to his peak while Rin watched. His performance seemed to please the prince, and afterward the prince ruffled his fluffer’s hair. Amiable silence fell over them. 

A silence that was ruined just a few minutes later when who but Sousuke’s nemesis showed up, as if he’d smelled them out. Maybe he had: sex had a distinctive scent and Haruka Nanase seemed more aquatic animal than human. 

Nanase stared at them, then turned and left abruptly.

“Shit,” Rin groaned. He pulled his robe on, fixed his hair and hurried after his favorite. 

Sousuke was left behind, as always. 

***

Relations between Sousuke and Nanase became the iciest yet. Clearly things were a bit tense between Rin and Haru too, as the prince stopped visiting. Now all Sousuke had was the slim comfort of his own empty bed and a lot of prattling from Kisumi about some little brother in the hospital.

Pathetically, Sousuke missed Rin with his whole heart. He wanted things to return to the brief time when they’d been able to talk to one another. He wanted to know just what the arrangement was with Haru and why Rin had pursued him. More pathetically, he just wanted Rin to lie with him in pleasure again. 

With nothing to do anymore, Sousuke had too much time on his hands. And idle hands did the devil’s work.

Impure motives guiding him, Sousuke experimented with creating a new balm. Something new he could impress Rin with. Most everything he had was targeted at easing pain or creating slickness. This time, he wanted to create something that intensified pleasure. Something hot and searing, like Rin’s gaze. He worked like a man possessed, grinding unfamiliar herbs. 

Once he’d settled on a blend of heat that wasn’t too strong (he used himself to test, which resulted in a very sore dick), he started on adding an aphrodisiac. The spices he used already had some effect, and just having them in the air must have triggered the sensitive arousal system of Kisumi, who’d started hanging out in Sousuke’s chambers. 

At first Sousuke chased him out during the test sessions, but one day he made the fatal mistake of testing a potent batch of aphrodisiac balm in the presence of the pink-haired sexpot. 

Kisumi’s hands were down the front of Sousuke’s pants faster than he could put the damn pestle down. Sousuke’s dick was hard already, and once in the harem boy’s experienced hands, he didn’t stand a chance. Kisumi pushed him down into his own bed, tearing away the offending pants and undergarment, desperate to touch Sousuke’s massive erection. 

“Mmm, it’s as big as I thought it would be. You’re so lucky,” Kisumi purred. “Only I think Mako’s was a little bigger.” 

“Shut up,” Sousuke growled. But under the affect of the aphrodisiac, it was hopeless to try to push the other man away. 

The tip of Kisumi’s erection poked out through the sheer sash draped over his hips. It was only visible for a second before he dipped down and licked a hot stripe from Sousuke’s asshole all the way up his dick. 

“So good,” he murmured as Sousuke panted. 

“Get on with it,” he grunted. “Or I’ll stuff your face with cock.”

“That’s exactly what I wanted to hear! Except I’ll be doing the stuffing,” Kisumi winked. “And not your face.”

He teased the stiff shaft of the Deputy Keeper’s erection, but his focus drifted down to his balls and lower to his sensitive entrance. 

“No one’s ever fucked you, have they?” Kisumi cooed. “They’re probably all too afraid of big grumpy Sousuke, but I’m not.”

“Little shit,” he growled. But his growl turned to gasping seconds later when Kisumi used his tongue for much better uses than talking. 

As a professional, Sousuke didn’t use his mouth on the boys. He only used his fingers and lubricants to pry open tight assholes. He’d made an exception for Rin. Kisumi, though, had rimming down to an art. At least, Sousuke was about ready to come from it. Even worse, he was read to beg for something bigger and more solid than the magical tongue inside him. 

Kisumi, of course, intuited this. “Do you want me to put my dick inside you, Sousuke?”

“No.”

“I don’t believe you.” The pink-haired demon shifted into a more amenable position. “I think you’d like something solid inside you right about now.”

He refused to answer, but spread his thighs. Kisumi twittered, and then delivered. 

For all the times he’d put things in other people, and readied them for penetration in so many ways, this was the first time someone had ever been inside him. Many of the sensations he was prepared for and took in stride. The one that he couldn’t absorb and flooded over him like a warm wave was pleasure. 

He blamed the aphrodisiac. He blamed it hard. 

This was for Rin, he reminded himself. It wasn’t about Kisumi at all. It wasn’t even about his own pleasure, ultimately. What he was experiencing now was a side effect of a failed experiment. An aphrodisiac this strong belonged out of the hands of mortal men. Because, oh god, he was coming around the thick cock plunging in and out of him. 

Kisumi fucked him absolutely senseless. Because neither one could stay soft, they kept fucking until both had collapsed. Sousuke managed to drape a wet cloth over his face to stop breathing in further stimulant, but otherwise was exhausted beyond functioning. 

Afterward he dumped the whole batch of aphrodisiac into a chamber pot.


	9. Dangerous Ideas

Unfortunately, word of Sousuke's aphrodisiac sex balm reached the prince. Who one day called for it to be brought to his chambers. Hating himself, Sousuke made another batch. Then he stared at it, sighed, and gathered the tatters of his self-esteem into something whole enough to function and set it aside. Then he walked to the prince’s room with a jar of minted oil instead of the devil creation the prince wanted. It was the middle of the day, so he expected to deposit the small container and leave to curt thanks. 

Instead, he opened the door to see Nanase sprawled on the bed, completely naked and indecently exposed. Rin wore only his skirt, and a sheen of sweat covered his chest. He grinned maniacally upon seeing Sousuke.

“Excellent, give me that,” he said. 

“My prince,” Sousuke bowed. He was pretty sure they were back on formal terms now. 

“Stop bowing,” Rin said, as he untwisted the topper. 

“You're going to use it now?” Sousuke asked. Apparently yes, as Rin was already spreading a test patch on his arm. 

“Thanks,” Rin purred, his demeanor pure sex. “I can feel it”

“That’s…” Sousuke struggled to speak, since he would have to point out his lie. “That’s just mint.”

“Mint. And it works as well as everyone says?” Rin’s smile was still feral.

“No, it doesn’t,” Sousuke said. “It’s not the aphrodisiac you asked for.”

Rin halted, look of embarrassment comically twisting his features. Followed quickly, of course, by indignant anger. “I gave you an order!”

“I didn’t feel like following it!” Sousuke shouted back. 

Just like that, the deep emotions between them had bubbled to the surface. The two stared at each other heatedly. The healing dialogues between the prince and fluffer hadn’t gone far enough in reconciling Sousuke’s feelings. His need burned as strong as ever. But with Nanase there, and given the intimacy he’d just interrupted, this didn’t seem like the time anything could be fixed. 

“Then if you’ll excuse me,” Sousuke said. He wasn’t keen on doing more damage to his heart.

“You’re not allowed to leave,” Rin said. “We haven’t even started.”

“I don’t want to watch the two of you!” Sousuke growled. “Goodbye.”

“Wait,” came Haru’s softer voice, overlaid by Rin’s irritated “Sousuke!” 

“Listen!" Rin said loudly, stalking towards Sousuke. "I want to be pleasured by _both_ of the men who love me. At the same time. That’s what I’ve wanted ever since the moment I knew you wanted me.” His presence was magnetic. Sousuke froze on the spot. 

“That’s not my job,” Sousuke said. 

“This isn’t about your job,” Rin stopped in front of Sousuke. His sharp eyes glared. “I _want_ you, you idiot. How many times do I have to say it?”

“How do you think Nanase feels?” Sousuke countered. Both eyes drifted to the dark-haired boy on the bed. Nanase looked at them, expression mild. 

“I don’t want Rin to be unhappy anymore,” Nanase spoke for himself. "We talked already." 

Great, now two idiots were trying to trap Sousuke in the dumbest idea ever. And yet, the worst part of himself urged him to say yes, to sate himself with these people trying to make bad decisions for themselves and each other. 

“Fine,” he grumbled. 

“What kind of attitude is that,” Rin pouted. 

“That’s all you’re getting,” Sousuke said. 

“I get what I want,” Rin flashed a dangerous smile. 

Unfortunately, he was right. 

First came awkwardly sitting on the bed together. Of the three of them, probably Nanase was the only one with threesome experience, thanks to Kisumi. Perhaps due to the experience or his greater impatience, Nanase made the first move on Sousuke. The kiss felt nothing like their strange interlude in jail. It felt less intimate, somehow, with Rin watching in rapt attention. Nanase, with his brief stint as a harem boy, likely made the better performer, he thought. Sousuke kissed awkwardly, just trying not to overwhelm the smaller boy with his larger mouth while wondering what Rin thought.

Suddenly Rin’s face was there, kissing both of them. It was a sloppy mess trying to orchestrate a three-way kiss, and it sort of failed. It didn’t really matter because by the end all three of them were horny and eager to move to the next phase. 

Which was: Nanase sandwiched Rin between the two black-haired boys. They eagerly caressed and kissed the available expanses of Rin’s lily-white skin, leaving pink marks in their wake. Rin whimpered with pleasure and his spread legs beckoned Sousuke in. The fluffer knew what was expected of him. 

Like the first time they’d had sexual contact, Sousuke was meticulous about preparing the prince. If there was one thing that Sousuke knew set him apart from every lover Rin had had and every one he would have in the future, it was his skill at fingering. By the time he’d wedged three fingers in, Rin’s cock was dark blood-red and Nanase also looked like he was hanging on by a thread. 

“I’m going to put it in,” Sousuke announced, and Rin moaned his approval around a mouthful of cock he’d acquired from Nanase.

For the short amount of time that it lasted, fucking Rin was pure bliss. He set an easy pace, mindful of Rin not choking. He fisted the prince’s cock with a lube-coated hand and Rin quivered and came. 

It would be improper to use the prince after the man’s thirst was quenched, so Sousuke finished in his hand. It wasn’t difficult when his body was so sensitive. Nanase seemed to have climaxed at an earlier point. Eyeing the raised, regularly-spaced pink lines on Nanase’s cock, Sousuke was glad that Rin’s distracted, dangerous teeth hadn’t been around his dick. 

The three caught their breath. Sousuke noticed the flash that passed between Nanase and Rin. 

He was in for a lot more trouble. Hours more. 

***

The situation when he awoke was actually stranger than the threesome from before he’d passed out. 

It was morning. Rin and Nanase were dressed in flowing lounging robes, eating snacks and fruits from chairs across the room. They both were disheveled, hair sticking up in all directions. Their body language was casual, and Sousuke had never seen the prince so relaxed. 

A plum pit smacked against the fluffer’s head. 

“Lazy Sousuke,” Rin teased. 

The bigger man grunted and turned over. He was just the royal fluffer; he wasn’t used to their sexual Olympics or any other kind of sexual exertion. His muscles ached, and his cock felt raw. 

Rin got up and stretched, his taut muscles flexing artistically. “We’re gonna swim. Come on.”

“Have fun,” Sousuke waved.

After they left, he contemplated the circumstances. At the very least, a truce had formed between the three of them. Rin wasn’t avoiding anyone, and Nanase’s icy exterior had warmed—considerably, if Sousuke’s memories of sweat and his flushed face was anything to go by. 

It would never last, though. He ought to resign himself to that fact sooner rather than later. He hoped Rin would still fuck him in private sometimes. 

He gathered his clothes and returned to the harem. He pointedly ignored the pool. The sounds of splashing accompanied him as he tidied his room, which wasn’t that messy, but there was not much else to do other than clean it. Perhaps he should have joined the others in the pool. 

“What are you doing in here?” Rin popped up, right on cue. He looked amazing, dripping wet and glistening. Sousuke cursed his simple, lovesick mind. 

“Being at home,” Sousuke replied. 

Nanase pushed past Rin, right through the entrance and placed his cold, wet lips on Sousuke’s. 

“Ah, water is kind of a turn-on for him,” Rin explained. “It’s weird.”

That explained a lot about Nanase’s lengthy swims.

“But that’s a good enough, excuse, I guess,” Rin shrugged and made himself at home on the bed. 

The sex went as it had before but with one key difference. This time Nanase wheedled his way into the middle. As Sousuke pressed into him, he wondered again why they were doing this and what the other two got out of it. 

After their bodies were limp with release, there was nowhere for him to run. Sousuke’s heart thumped with anxiety. Thankfully, he was saved by Mikoshiba’s knock on the door. 

“Prince Rin, a guard is here to escort you to the throne room. Your presence is needed,” he said formally.

Rin groaned and pushed Nanase out of the way. “Coming,” he mumbled and pulled on his tunic. “Send the guard away, I’m going to my chambers to dress properly first.”

Before Rin left, he kissed first Nanase and then Sousuke. Then he grimly headed off. 

Despite Rin speaking to him about his duties, this was the first time said duties personally brushed against Sousuke. The reasons why he admired Rin became clear again. Only Rin could be both so passionate and so duty-bound to his position. 

Neither Nanase nor Sousuke was brave or stupid enough to fuck without Rin there. Not that he really wanted to, but he felt like Nanase wanted it. The asshole refused to leave his bed or put on clothes. Sousuke went about his daily duties as well, in awkward silence until Nanase spoke. 

“Did you sleep with Makoto?” Nanase asked. 

Of all the questions he might have expected, that was not it. He hadn’t given much thought recently to the beefy, brown-haired boy who’d been Nanase’s companion. 

“No,” Sousuke replied, leaving out the _but now I remembered how I wanted to, thanks._

Nanase seemed to breath a sigh of relief. 

_That was fucking weird,_ Sousuke thought. _This guy is going to be the death of me._

“I miss him,” Nanase said. “He was my you.”

Sousuke struggled to construct a meaningful picture from the other’s clipped dialogue. So: Nanase was attracted to Makoto, and he missed him. Seeing Rin have his cake and eat it too had planted a dangerous seed in Nanase’s harebrained head. He also wanted to have two lovers.

“Don’t think you can do what a prince does,” Sousuke warned. 

“It’s fair,” Nanase said. 

“Rin won’t see it that way,” Sousuke said. 

“Rin is fair,” Nanase said. 

Rin _wasn’t_ fair. How exactly he could tell that to Nanase in a way that he’d understand, when he hadn’t been through what Sousuke had, he didn’t know. 

He shrugged.

***

The next couple of weeks confirmed what a pain it was to be Rin and Nanase’s new toy. Rin was insatiable, and whatever fired up Rin would spread to the black-haired boy. They liked to use him as bread in their sandwich mostly, but they used him in other ways too. Such as Rin riding him into the mattress while being stroked off by Nanase. One time, they fit _him_ between them, filling his mouth and ass with their hot seed. 

He also realized how absent Rin really was. All this time he’d assumed Nanase was banging the prince constantly, but it turned out that royal duties kept Rin occupied most days and nights. No wonder Nanase had chosen to escape. And so, life being able to sleep with Rin (always with Haru present) was a lot like his previous life, except with more dick chafing.

Having achieved the thing he most desired, at least partially, drained Sousuke’s nervousness. He found himself doing other things, like actually talking to Kisumi about that sick brother in the hospital. He helped Nitori with his writing (Sousuke was the most literate person in the harem by far). In general he was happier, and more peaceful. Even Mikoshiba noticed. 

Mikoshiba, however, was not faring well. Princess Gou had continued to reject all the male members of her harem and contented herself with her own favorite, Chigusa. 

So came a typical day when Nanase swam for hours while Mikoshiba lounged around in the Deputy Keeper’s room complaining. 

“I’ve done too good a job!” Mikoshiba lamented. He draped over a chair in the workroom, practically melting into it. “The harems are too sexy and now the prince and princess will never marry. Who knew they’d both be so interested in the same sex! Is it my fault? Was I so manly the prince was swayed and the princess was overwhelmed? Curse my great genes!”

Secretly, Sousuke wondered what Rin planned to do about the succession issue. Despite being of marriageable age, the prince had invested no effort in marriage prospects. If it came to it, marriage between siblings was not uncommon in the Matsuoka dynasty (inbreeding certainly had left the clan with its distinctive red-haired, red-eyed look), but the whole issue had probably never been deeply considered.

“What’s taking him so long? He should have arrived by now. I’m worried,” Mikoshiba sighed. Sousuke had no idea who this “him” was.

“Wait, it’s perfect! You go!” exclaimed Mikoshiba.

“What are you talking about?”

“I sent for my little brother Momotarou to join Princess Gou’s harem. He’s a little small now, but he’ll grow up to be manly like his brother! The thing is, I just got a letter from him from a border town on the Great River Road. The lack of water is cutting off boat travel and he’s no good at riding camels.”

“Where is this going?”

“No need to be so grumpy, you’re going to love this! Why don’t you go collect him? You could go get Momo here in half the time he could do it himself. Perfect!”

“I didn’t agree.”

“Sousuke,” suddenly the Head Keeper’s tone got deep and serious. “You’re sleeping with the prince. I’m not saying that’s a terrible idea since technically you’re part of the harem. But you just might want to give him some room to really value you. Unlike Haruka, you can actually leave. If you’re willing to take a risk and act like the free man you are, then it’ll make your life better here. It’s for your own good. You know, I look after this whole harem, and that includes you.”

Sousuke’s eyes widened and he scoffed. “Even you’re giving me life advice now. I must look really pathetic.”

“Ha ha! It’s the opposite. You’re a lot less pathetic than when I first met you. Well, think about it,” Mikoshiba rose and clasped his shoulder. “But not too long, because someone’s seriously got to go get Momo.”

Deep in thought about howling desert winds and camels, Sousuke didn’t realize his stare was boring a hole through the floor until a pair of naked, dripping feet entered his tunnel vision. 

“I heard through the water,” Nanase said. He cut quite the figure, naked but for a see-through loincloth. Water curved down his lithe frame in shining rivulets. His chest rose and fell heavily, as if he’d rushed over. 

“That’s called eavesdropping,” Sousuke said, but couldn’t muster the venom he used to characterize their communications with. 

“Makoto and I grew up in a town on the Great River Road,” Nanase said. “It was where we were supposed to meet up.”

Sousuke met Nanase’s gaze. It conveyed that, yes, he was being asked the favor he thought he heard. 

“Makoto’s in Iwatobi,” Nanase said. 

***

Rin, of course, would not let Sousuke go willingly. He scoffed when Sousuke said he had a task to complete for Mikoshiba. It was Nanase who convinced Rin, in some conversation or coercion Sousuke was not witness to, but received royal letters of transit and identification because of.

Two days later, Sousuke was on the road out of the capital city, provisions for a week strapped to his camel, and a lot of ambivalence fluttering in his chest, as if his heart had torn itself into hundreds of confused pieces. 

Momo was in the same city as Makoto. Iwatobi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After this begins the second half of the story! Beyond entitled Rin, inscrutable Haru and negative Sousuke is a (somewhat) bigger world.


	10. Him

The western region of the Samezuka Kingdom was a vast expanse of desert, dotted with oases. The Great River Road was an ancient pilgrimage route along an improbable river that wound through the desert, connecting oases like jewels on a glittering topaz necklace. Of the prince’s two ceremonial necklaces, one bore the ancient crest of Samezuka and the other was a representation of the Great River Road. The Road’s existence predated the kingdom. Its first travelers were unknown, but the destination was the capital city. Still, the part near the city had been unused for centuries due to dryness and erosion, and so most of Sousuke’s route was on a different road, straight through the desert. 

The tawny sand dunes inspired no nostalgia in Sousuke, as he had been born in near-tropical Sano to the far east. Days of sand pitting his face did nothing to win his heart. Luckily Iwatobi was one of the most easily reachable points on the Road, and within a few days its blue-and-white tiled gates and cluster of buildings emerged from the dusky dunes. 

Iwatobi wasn’t a very big city, but he had no address for where Momo was staying. Logic dictated he go inn by inn and inquire after a red-headed, gold-eyed patron, so he asked the townspeople and they directed him to one of the more prominent inns. Like many of the Iwatobi buildings, The Swim Club Inn was an old multi-story clay building inlaid with large blue-and-white tiles. A river dolphin mosaic hung above the front entrance.

Inside the inn, the manner of luxury that Iwatobi must have once enjoyed before the drought was on full display. Vaulted ceilings and detailed latticeworks adorned all the masonry; richly colored tapestries hung next to bronze braziers that illuminated the interior with warm, cozy light and gave off scented smoke. 

A crowd gathered in the back around what looked like a stage. Sousuke’s mild interest turned to riveted attention when the performer bounced onto the platform.

Dressed in skimpy silks and jewelry all too familiar to the fluffer, a young blond man danced to cheers and whistles. The blond's irrepressible joy and flirtatious streak shone through as he teased his audience. Despite the whole of the room fixating on the dancer, Sousuke felt a prickle on his neck as if _he_ was the one being watched. He casually flicked his eyes to the corners of the room, and sure enough, familiar spiky blue hair stuck out from behind a pillar. 

The traitorous ex-guard pushed up his red-rimmed glasses, his look of hostility clear. In response, Sousuke headed across the room towards his challenger as the set ended. The blue-haired man drew him down a corridor before executing a surprisingly nimble somersault that ended with a curved knife to Sousuke’s throat. 

“Leave before I’m forced to silence you, Yamazaki,” the former guard said. His voice, which Sousuke mostly remembered for its high keening notes during sex, was now as thin and sharp as the cutting edge of his blade. 

Sousuke was getting tired of those curved knives being brandished at him. 

“Relax,” Sousuke said. “I’m not here to capture you. I don’t think Rin even cares you two are gone.”

“Rin-chan doesn’t care if I’m gone?!” wailed Nagisa, his voice carrying before the pink silk of his headdress slid against Sousuke’s arm. The blond bounded in front of him, pouting. 

“Nagisa!” reprimanded the blue-haired guard. “I am protecting you! You should be running to safety.”

“I can protect myself, Rei-chan, but you look so handsome doing it that I’ll let you.” He then cocked his head. “But maybe you should let Sou-chan go.”

“He could drag you back to _that place_!”

“Sou-chan’s not mean. But Rin-chan is mean for forgetting me!”

Reluctantly, the knife dropped from the fluffer’s throat. 

“I bet there’s a good reason, you’re here,” Nagisa bubbled. “I really wanna show you where we live now, Sou-chan, it’s super nice. Come with us and you can tell us why you came.”

Nagisa continued to play diplomat, which was why just a few minutes later Sousuke found himself in a sumptuous suite in another hotel. It was draped in all manner of fabrics, with a handsome pillow-laden bed in the center. Thankfully Nagisa saw fit to conduct their business in a seating area with upholstered chaises rather than the ostentatious bed.

After spinning around and asking the Deputy Keeper to admire the room several times, Nagisa finally sat down. “I’m dying to know, why did Rin-chan send you?” Nagisa pried. “Is he looking for Haru-chan?”

“You know that Nanase is at the castle just as well as I do,” Sousuke grumbled. 

“I told you! I win!” Nagisa eagerly gloated at Rei.

“Unfortunately I have to admit you were correct on that matter,” Rei sighed. “Though I didn’t want to believe that Haruka would return to his captor.”

“Not his captor— _his lover_! I knew it was true love,” Nagisa exclaimed. “Oops, sorry, Sou-chan. Did you leave because you can’t stand to see them be lovey-dovey?”

Clearly, Sousuke had never credited Nagisa enough for his insightfulness, but given the accusation, he wasn’t feeling all that admiring. 

“I’m just the Deputy Keeper of the prince’s harem,” Sousuke deflected. But his front must have been lacking, because the blue-haired man chimed in with advice.

“I was just a guard,” Rei added gently. “I didn’t have the right to touch a member of the prince’s harem. But Nagisa showed me the value in violating social class when the heart is at stake.”

“It’s different,” Sousuke maintained. “With the two of you fools, you…” He stopped short. 

“Love each other back?” Rei offered. 

Sousuke began to emotionally retreat. He hadn’t come here for love advice. He was looking for information on Momotarou Mikoshiba. And yet, in this room obviously built from courage and love, his resolve to closet his emotions wavered.

“It’s okay, Sou-chan,” Nagisa patted him on the shoulder. “You don’t have to give up on Rin-chan.”

And then Sousuke sobbed. It was just once, but it was completely mortifying. Rei left and returned with a handkerchief, but by then Sousuke felt in control again. He was about to ask if they’d seen a red-haired younger incarnation of Seijuro but Nagisa spoke first. 

“I know! Rei-chan, let’s take him to see...HIM! Right now!”

“It would be proper to wait until tomorrow. It’s already late,” Rei chided. 

“Awwww… Fine, first thing tomorrow! Guess that means you’re our guest tonight Sou-chan.”

Having no viable alternative, Sousuke accepted the invitation. As he lay stretched out in the bed that fit all three of them remarkably comfortably, Sousuke drifted to sleep thinking not of “him,” or Rin, but of silks and dancing. 

 

***

 

Visiting “him” apparently required that Nagisa get dressed up in a silver headdress, striped harem pants and a tiny red vest—all of which appeared to be new and of high-quality make. Rei spent an inordinate amount of time fixing his hair in a mirror, despite the fact that a piece still fell across his forehead no matter what he did. Sousuke, having nothing to do nor nice clothes to wear, simply watched as Nagisa applied kohl and blush. “You never used to put enough of it on me!” he pouted to Sousuke. 

The cant of the boy’s delicate hips elicited an unexpected spike of arousal in the fluffer. Nagisa’s lithe body arched cutely, the kohl making his already noteworthy reddish eyes pop. Never one to miss a cue, the saucy blond grinned and hugged Sousuke’s arm. “Sou-chan, do you like it?”

When the larger man huffed and looked away, Nagisa pressed his body insistently against his side. The curve of Nagisa’s thighs joined against his, his heated groin pressing against his hip. “I could give you a dance. And then maybe afterwards I could get in your lap—”

“Nagisa! That is quite enough. We’ve talked about exclusivity,” Rei admonished.

“Oops, sorry, Rei-chan. You can join,” he winked. The little imp had managed to work up two men at once. A true courtesan indeed. 

“I think not,” Rei said.

Nagisa huffed, but Rei stood his ground. Sousuke was suddenly impressed with the ability of this blue-haired man to deal with the hyperactive harem boy. Whatever he was doing behind closed doors, Nagisa liked. A lot. 

“How do you satisfy him?” Sousuke asked Rei suddenly. 

The two lovers exchanged a look of excitement that Sousuke only belatedly realized was about him, not their sexual escapades.

“I have my techniques,” Rei preened, pushing up his glasses.

“Now you’re thinking along the right track, Sou-chan,” Nagisa smiled. “We should go!”

They wound through a lively marketplace full of well-kept if small shops. There were small storefronts and some carts, selling all manner of produce and some animals as well as a variety of dry goods, tools, clothing, toys and other necessities and luxuries. The group stopped when they reached a large, well-kept jug store. A young man in a black-and-white scarf and green robes approached them at the open-window entrance. Sousuke didn’t need to see the face or hear the voice to know who it was. Just the way the man walked and held himself betrayed his identity. 

Makoto.

How ironic that the person Sousuke was supposed to be looking for remained elusive, while the one he wasn’t officially looking for had fallen right into his lap. Figuratively, of course.

“Mako-chan! We brought someone!” Nagisa called out. 

“You bring the best customers—” Makoto began, smiling, before he noticed Sousuke’s imposing figure. He cried out in sudden fear and clutched the jug he’d been holding to his chest. Sousuke couldn’t help feeling hurt, despite the very real reasons the man had to fear him. Nagisa, however, was determined they all should speak, and coaxed the group into a very nice back parlor that must have served as some sort of business room. 

“Before you ask, Mako-chan, Haru is safe. He’s staying at the palace,” Nagisa said. 

A visible sigh of relief passed through the merchant. But Sousuke saw tension still coiled in the man’s forearms.

“Thank goodness! But, um, Yamazaki, is that all you came to say?” Makoto said nervously.

“I wasn’t actually looking for you at all. I’m here because I’m looking for someone else,” Sousuke said. “His name is Momotarou Mikoshiba. He’s the younger brother of Head Keeper Mikoshiba.”

“We would have seen him if he was at the inns,” Rei considered. “The circuit of dances Nagisa has been doing should have put us into contact with him, considering we are at every hotel once a day. And I recognized _you_ immediately, Yamazaki. I believe one of us would easily have identified Head Keeper Mikoshiba’s sibling.” 

“Actually, if he left or arrived when you weren’t there, you would have missed him,” Makoto added timidly.

“True. In that case,” Rei continued, “We should investigate further. Is the target aware he’s being followed?”

“Can we ambush him?” Nagisa chirped.

_These people are idiots,_ Sousuke sighed. He noticed a mirrored expression on Makoto’s face. 

“I can just ask for the guest registers,” Sousuke said. He scooted his chair back. Seemed as good as any point to split company. 

“They won’t show the registers to you,” Makoto was the one to speak. “I’m sorry, but you’re an outsider. I would have to come with you.”

“Suit yourself,” Sousuke said. He no longer had the authority to tell Nanase's admirer what to do.

With some promises that Sousuke didn’t want to know the details of, Rei managed to convince Nagisa that he needed to go to his performances rather than tag along. And so, Sousuke and Makoto found themselves alone on the quest for Momo.

The redhead was clearly not on Makoto’s mind as he awkwardly tried to make conversation with Sousuke while they trekked through the streets. 

“Um… Is Haru all right at the palace?”

“He’s fine.”

“That’s a relief! I was sure the prince would throw him in prison. Haru’s not good when he’s not near water and I was really worried and I’m babbling aren’t I… Is he still in the harem?”

“Prince Rin forgave him. You don’t want to know the rest,” Sousuke said. 

The other man’s head fell. “I know.”

Sousuke thought the conversation was over, but then Makoto continued in a strained voice. “I thought I could save him. But he didn’t want to be saved.”

“He asked me to find you,” Sousuke stated. 

The look of surprised joy on Makoto’s face stunned the jaded keeper. “He did?” But then Makoto’s worries took over. “But that means...he can’t leave the palace...”

“No. But you can go to him,” Sousuke said.

“I can’t,” Makoto sadly smiled. 

“He wants you to,” Sousuke said. 

Makoto showed unexpected willpower by further brushing the subject off as they made their rounds to the inns. It was as Rei had first hypothesized: Momo was nowhere to be found on any hotel roster. 

The sun dipped below the horizon before the two men arrived back at the jug shop. The dancer and his boyfriend were absent, so Makoto extended a polite invitation for Sousuke to enter and dine with Makoto’s family. He would have refused except that his stomach was rumbling and he had lived at the palace so long he honestly didn’t remember how to order food at a restaurant, much less cook. 

Domesticity had a warped meaning for someone who ran a harem. Faced with the warmth and ebullience of the Tachibana family, Sousuke understood his idea of “home” was quite different from normal. His memories of family were old and dusty, not even worn from being thumbed through. His thoughts had always been on the future, facing the bright, white light of Rin Matsuoka. His past was effectively seared away. 

He could see how a man like Nanase could long for a man like Makoto. He radiated stability and generosity. He was kind to his siblings and deferent to his parents. For a little fuck-up like Nanase, that normalcy had to hold appeal. At the moment, even Sousuke himself was drawn in. 

Enough so that when Nagisa and Rei collected him, he asked to come back the next day. Fear returned to Makoto’s pretty green eyes, but he nodded. 

Sousuke was forced to endure significant glances being exchanged between his companions all the way back to their abode.


	11. Holding On, Letting Go

Nagisa’s devious motives were perfectly clear when he informed Sousuke that the Deputy Keeper couldn’t stay at their house the next night because he and Rei needed some alone time. First, that was a total lie because Nagisa was a huge exhibitionist. Second, it was a thinly-veiled attempt at kindling something between Sousuke and Makoto.

The fluffer did think the large, shy man was attractive, but circumstances were too complex for anyone to think with their dicks. That was how they’d all gotten into this mess. 

“Sorry, I can’t accompany you, I have to work today,” Makoto excused himself when Sousuke arrived at the jug shop in the morning, not having anywhere else to start. Sousuke was relieved, given the pressure Nagisa had placed on their interaction. Now, Sousuke could focus on his task. 

Where might Momo be? Sousuke started with what he could guess. The elder Mikoshiba liked women. He liked action. He was a military man. Hopefully Momo was cut from the same cloth. He began to comb through the city based on those criteria. 

Sousuke’s search for a garrison came up empty-handed. He noticed that there were no police, no soldiers of any kind. He wondered who kept the peace but couldn’t dwell on that when he had a search to conduct. 

The stockyards didn’t turn up a red-headed troublemaker either, but Momo wasn’t supposed to like camels so it wasn’t much of a surprise. 

The heat of the open desert dulled Sousuke’s mind and slowed him. It drove him to seek the waterfront unconsciously. Old, swaying palms tottered above a lush undergrowth of greenery. Here and there exotic flowers bloomed from bright green stalks and deep leaves. From the shoreline he observed more industrious uses of the watefront downriver, where dusty brown buildings clustered over the water’s edge and docks tiptoed, rickety and brazen, into the middle of the river. The river fell noticeably below its high water mark, exposing the buildings’ spindly legs. 

Folks were stringing flowers along prominent areas, groups gathering to decorate piers and windows alike. 

After the cool breeze had pumped energy back into his gait, Sousuke’s growling stomach guided him to the market. With the copper coins that had sat unused in his satchel, he purchased a skewer of unknown meat crusted in bread crumbs. It was crunchy on the outside and juicy on the inside. Sousuke had never had anything quite like it and he was sad to have missed out on its glory for so long. 

He noticed flowers even on the stalls and realized the townspeople were preparing for, or starting early, a festival. It was a terrible distraction. He spent more of his coppers eating from the various stalls, getting more used to purchasing with practice. The “katsu” skewers were never big enough. 

With dusk approaching, he headed back toward Nagisa’s hotel accomodations, only to remember that he was kicked out for the night. He hesitated, then changed course to the jug seller’s shop. 

Business was crazy. A crowd of people welled around the shop, purchasing tiny jars. Makoto himself was in the thick of it, a gentle maestro, guiding and smiling and taking money. Sousuke only watched the bustling scene for a minute before getting a new idea. He looped back to the food stalls. 

Buying the food was easy, maneuvering his way through the jug-shop crowd with his massive body to Makoto was hard. He didn’t know how the brown-haired man made his motions so fluid. 

“Here, eat,” Sousuke said, shoving several skewers in Makoto’s face. For the record, only one was katsu. 

Makoto got over the shock of Sousuke's reappearance quickly, and then wibbled adorably in response to the offered snacks. He tried to refuse, but Sousuke was stubborn.

“I can’t eat while I’m working!” Makoto said.

“I’ll watch things for you. How quick can you eat?” Sousuke would have none of the brunette's deflection.

“But… that’s…” Makoto trailed off. His hunger and exhaustion got the better of him, and he sucked the meat off the first skewer. Sousuke’s heart was so caught up in unexpected arousal at those lips closing over a length of meat that he missed viewing most of the second skewer. Makoto slowed down on the third, strong mouth pulling off a piece at a time.

Sousuke was tempted to lick the juice clinging to Makoto’s fingers, but decided the strange urge was better left unsated. He excused himself to go sit outside the shop; he was in the way of the other shoppers anyway.

As he watched, business began to slow down. The last shoppers hurriedly picked small jars, then ran off. Sousuke observed and observed, until Makoto slid into a chair and heaved a sigh of relief. 

“What was the sales rush for?” Sousuke asked. 

Makoto twitched, but then was too exhausted to bring his guard fully up. “Ah, it’s for the Obon Festival. It’s a local festival to honor dead loved ones. It’s one of our busiest days.” He sighed. “People buy oil jars to light and leave at graves.”

Sousuke nodded. It didn’t seem like a good time to bring up staying over. He could always sleep in the stable his camel was boarded at. 

“Take us to the river, Makoto!” Suddenly twin balls of energy surrounded the large man. 

“Oh no you don’t,” Makoto’s mother pulled both children by the shoulders. “It’s been a long day, don’t bother your brother.”

“It’s okay,” Makoto smiled. “They just want to see the floats.”

“Makoto goes every year, we want to go too!” the children whined. 

“You two will stay here. Makoto, you and your friend can go whenever. We’ve got a handle on things here.”

“It’s fine,” Makoto said. 

“It’s fine if you go,” his mother said. “Don’t you have two lanterns?”

Sousuke never knew the forces of politeness could feel so turbulent. Makoto, being the son, eventually deferred to his mother. The brown-haired man retrieved two folded papers and two small candles, then he and Sousuke set off.

The river was easy to see even several blocks away. It glowed with a yellow light that Sousuke discovered to be paper lanterns afloat on the placid night-dark river. Hundreds of them floated serenely downstream while on the banks crowds gathered to watch and add their own paper lanterns to the procession. 

It was a beautiful, surreal sight. The golden glow cast the intimacy of firelight upon the faces turned in reverence toward the water. Sousuke felt warm in an entirely more bearable way than in the stifling heat of the day. Makoto looked out over the water deep in thought. When his gaze fell to Sousuke, the fluffer asked a question that had been bothering him. 

“Aren’t you going to light the lantern?”

“Oh, no,” Makoto said, looking down as if he’d forgotten, though his hands clenched the delicate frame. “I can’t bring myself to let him go.”

It couldn’t have been clearer that he was speaking of the object of his affections, Nanase: the beautiful, taciturn and strange man who belonged to another and who even Sousuke had been granted intimacy with. Yet the person who longed for him the most remained lonely and sad at the shores of a mourning river. 

Glittering tears slid down Makoto’s cheeks. It wasn’t long before he was doubled over in sobs. There was no one standing very close to their little landing to see as Sousuke hesitantly rested a reassuring hand on the crying man’s shoulder. 

After an initial flinch, Makoto accepted the comfort. Sousuke felt comforted as well somehow. So rarely did anyone use him for anything other than a glorified sex toy that he’d forgotten the warmth and rightness of simple human companionship. Strangely, out on a river with a stranger, he felt more intimacy than he ever had with Rin. 

Makoto shifted, wiping his wet eyes and uncurling away from Sousuke. 

“Feel better?” Sousuke asked. 

“Not really,” Makoto smiled.

That suffering smile tweaked something in Sousuke. He didn’t like how the smile’s jagged edges turned inside to cut this gentle man. How dare Haru and Rin be so ignorantly selfish! In that moment of indignation, Sousuke remembered the paper lantern in his own hand. With shaking hands he set the candle inside alight with the flick of a small match. Sousuke set his lantern afloat. Both men watched it go. 

“Want me to set yours too?” Sousuke offered. The second lantern was cradled tightly in Makoto’s large hands.

“Uh, I…” Makoto balked at the symbolic step that would free his heart. His hands clenched, crumpling the paper a little. Realizing what he was doing, the merchant set the lantern on the dock and lit it. Shaking, he placed it in the waves.

Once it was out of reach and indistinguishable from the other thousands of lights, Makoto spoke. 

“Ha ha. I don’t think I should have done that.”

“Me either,” Sousuke said.

Mutual regret and thoughts deeper than the darkening night enveloped their walk back. When they reached the store, Sousuke managed to ask for lodging and Makoto agreed without a fuss. In fact, the large man seemed genuinely relieved to have someone beside him who understood his pain. They set up bedding on the floor, after Makoto offered his own bed several times and the fluffer adamantly refused. 

If the sight of Makoto’s bare toned back rolling over in bed gave Sousuke incongruently indecent thoughts, that was his own damn problem. 

*** 

Makoto was good at shoulder massages. 

Sousuke found this out when he woke up with his right shoulder so stiff it could hardly move. Perceptive to others’ pain as always, Makoto had offered to work it out. Sousuke felt like putty under those strong, large hands. Nothing but medicine really worked, but the attention felt good and his other muscles were singing. 

“You’re good,” Sousuke said. 

Makoto laughed. “I make pottery for my family’s business, so I guess that’s why.”

An image of those strong hands running slickly up the walls of a vase flitted through the fluffer’s head. He grunted. Enough was enough. He now understood that he was attracted to Makoto, but he didn’t see how it fit into what his heart wanted, which was always and only Prince Rin. He’d rather the images and full-body flush go away.

“Um, does your shoulder give you problems?” Makoto asked. “I always saw you rubbing it back...at that place.”

Had he always rubbed it? Sousuke hadn’t noticed that himself. He also hadn’t realized Makoto had been paying any attention to him, not when Nanase was around to arrest the lovestruck man’s very core. 

“Old military injury,” Sousuke said. 

“You were a soldier?” Makoto seemed genuinely surprised. 

“More or less,” Sousuke answered. 

Makoto was too polite to press, and Sousuke had always thought it was best if no one knew that he’d been the prince’s body double. 

“I have to help out at the shop today,” Makoto said, changing the subject. “But you can stay here tonight if you like.” 

Sousuke huffed his ascent. 

***

“Yeah, there’s a redhead who’s been at the docks.”

A youngish man who looked like he’d seen better days gestured towards a group of tall wooden boats on the riverside. “Loud kid, working odd jobs. Can’t say anybody knows him, though.”

“Thanks,” Sousuke said. His search had finally turned up a lead. A loud redhead who wasn’t from the area sounded exactly like Momo. 

“He from the capital?” the guy asked. “Cause you look like you are, and I had to wonder with his red hair and all if he isn’t royalty.”

As much as the royal fluffer chafed at the comparison of a rough Mikoshiba to the pure and refined Matsuoka family, he didn’t want anyone knowing he worked in the palace and had intimate—truly intimate—knowledge of a royal personage. 

“Just collecting him for his brother,” Sousuke said. Then, he placed a few silver coins in the man’s hand. “Thanks for your help.”

“I’ve seen him around _The Otter_ ,” the man added.

But when Sousuke reached the docks, chest heaving from the brisk walk, he learned that _The Otter_ had just set sail for a two-week journey.

***

Familiar keening voices greeted Sousuke when he approached the door of Nagisa’s chambers. Inured to shame and too impatient for propriety, he knocked roughly on the thick wooden beams. 

“Keep going, Rei-chan! I’m almost there~” 

Sousuke bellowed, “Open the door, Nagisa, or I’ll drag your ass back to the palace!”

The door opened, sooner than seemed physically possible. A glowing, sweat-drenched and partially clothed blond beamed up at him. “Sou-chan! Finish me off?”

Sex scent wafted through the door. For a bizarre second, the prospect of pushing the little troublemaker up against the wall and sucking off his swollen cock seemed like a pretty good idea. Then he remembered he was there to find a map and progress his quest. 

“Let me in, Nagisa. I have a question for your boyfriend,” Sousuke set his jaw firmly.

“You can come inside, but then you have to _come inside_ ,” Nagisa teased. 

“Nagisa!” The blue-haired guard, as sweaty and red-faced as his blond lover, pulled them both in and shut the door. Then he grabbed the arms of his lover. “How can you proposition a man when we were just lying in passion?”

“It’s just Sou-chan,” Nagisa said. “And it’s my top life goal to get him in bed.” 

“Forget about it,” said Sousuke and Rei in unison. 

“Meanies,” Nagisa pouted. “Anyway I’m sooo hard right now, I’m going to explode.”

“Yamazaki, if you would excuse us for a moment,” Rei said. He dragged his lover into the bedroom. 

Even Sousuke felt embarrassed for how quickly Nagisa cried out, whining “no fair, Rei-chan!” in stuttering breaths. The two were back in the room in an uncomfortably short amount of time, although thankfully the detour had drained the oversexed menace of his oozing libido. 

“Is there something we can help you with, Yamazaki?” Rei stated, formal words incongruous with his half-undone clothing and flushed face. 

“A map,” Sousuke said. “Do you have a map of the area?”

Rei’s eyes brightened, as if he’d been waiting his whole life to hear that question. From a wooden cabinet he pulled an armful of scrolls and plopped them on the table. He rooted through them intently until he came upon one that he rolled out and had Sousuke hold the ends of. All the while he prattled on about where the maps had come from and how it was wise to have a lay of the land no matter where you were. 

A dot along the river identified the town Momo was headed to. It was the opposite direction of the capitol.

“Shit,” Sousuke swore.

“If a human walks at 3 miles per hour, given 12 hours of rest, it would take 10 days to get there by foot,” Rei said. “At a camel’s speed of 10 miles per hour, given the same amount of rest—”

“Rei-chan is so good at math!”

“—it would take approximately a third of the time, 3.3 days to be exact.” He pushed up his glasses to enunciate his point. 

If four-eyes was right, then Sousuke knew the choice he had to make. Rather than wait around two weeks and cause the prince worry, it would be better to meet _The Otter_ at its destination and take the road directly from there to the capitol. 

“Thanks for everything,” Sousuke said, getting up. 

“Wait, Sou-chan!” Nagisa was suddenly concerned. “You’re not leaving already, are you?”

“Nagisa, he still works for the prince. He can’t stay here forever,” the blue-haired man said to his lover. Then, directly to the fluffer, “Am I correct in assuming that no word of Nagisa’s presence here will reach the prince?”

Sousuke nodded. 

Rei stood up and bowed deeply. “Thank you for always treating Nagisa kindly...and...for looking the other way during our illicit trysts. You were always very understanding. Please forgive us for any trouble our rudeness has caused you.”

Something felt warm again in the fluffer’s chest. He’d never given much thought to making Nagisa’s life better (the opposite if anything). But here he was again being thanked for something and he liked the feeling. 

A peck graced his cheek. 

“Thank you, Sou-chan,” Nagisa said. “Come back anytime!”

Sousuke grunted again, and was gone.


	12. Unclenching

As he was leading his camel and newly-purchased provisions out of town to quest after Momo's errant ship, Sousuke suddenly remembered a last piece of unfinished business. He wound his way back through the streets to the jug hut. Makoto perked up upon the arrival of the fluffer and his camel. Sousuke was sad to have to disappoint expectations of friendship or...whatever.

“Makoto,” Sousuke said. He stood a few feet away, camel laden and road-ready. “I can’t stay over with you tonight. I’m sorry.”

“Are you going back to the palace?” Makoto said, worry creasing his features. 

“I got a lead on Momo, so I have to go. I won’t be back afterward," Sousuke remained resolutely in place, although perhaps not as firm-backed as he would have liked.

“But you just got to Iwatobi!” Makoto said. Sousuke had to wonder where the timid man from just a few days ago had gone. He knew Makoto got passionate when it came to, well, people he was passionate about, but he was surprised to find himself firmly categorized as someone Makoto cared about.

“It’s better this way,” Sousuke said. 

If there were any doubts that Makoto understood the full implications of that sentence, they were washed away when the brown-haired man closed the distance between them, grabbed the camel's reins, and tied the camel to a hook. 

“Let me give you something to eat at least. You’ll get hungry. My mother always has leftovers.”

Inside the Tachibana’s kitchen, Sousuke stood awkwardly as a small stack of cheese and breads grew in a knapsack as Makoto ransacked the larder randomly. When shaking hands fumbled for an apple, Sousuke couldn’t take it anymore. Why were they dancing around their attraction when it was so painfully obvious? If he didn’t do something now, Makoto might have just another regret to live with. He grabbed Makoto’s hands and pulled him up.

Into a kiss. A deep, soul-quenching kiss.

Passion leaped out of control. The two men's mouths broke apart and fit together again, firm and passionate, needy and eager. Sousuke broke the string of kisses to nuzzle into Makoto’s shoulder, biting and kissing as the other man cautiously worked a hand into his tunic. As he pressed himself against Makoto, he could feel the other man’s arousal nestling against his own, separated by only a few layers of fabric. Sousuke rubbed himself against that heat, and Makoto’s hips ground back in return. 

Shakily, they broke apart. Makoto’s gaze didn’t meet Sousuke’s, but he swiveled and led the fluffer by the hand out of the kitchen and down a short hallway to his small bedroom. Tapestries and clothes hung about the room, but Sousuke really only had eyes for the skinny cot covered in striped fabric that dominated the small space. 

Marveling again that a big man like Makoto slept in such a small bed, his concerns soon shifted into how two large men could fit on said bed without breaking it. Then he didn’t care at all, just desired to be caressing the flesh slowly being unwrapped from Makoto’s garments.

The gentle man leaned back all too easily, reacting sweetly to Sousuke’s touch and attention. Just as in the past, Makoto was completely receptive to everything Sousuke did. But this time Sousuke got the pleasure of being able to kiss and be kissed, to hear Makoto’s pants and words in his ears. The words were mostly half-formed, but then Makoto said something desperately coherent. 

“You’ll fuck me, won’t you?” 

Sousuke’s cock throbbed. It was exactly what he hoped to do. The harem didn’t deal in much that ended in anything other than penetrative sex, so it was what he was trained to do and think to do and want desperately. No matter how amazing their caresses and kisses were, he really wanted to sink into Makoto’s body.

Turning red as a beet, the brown-haired man pulled a jar of oil from under his bed. Both of them fantasized in that moment about Makoto masturbating alone, fingers deep inside and slick with oil.

“I thought about your fingers sometimes,” Makoto whispered. “Haru’s too! But you were the first person to ever touch me like that.”

There were a lot of people who could say what Makoto had, so Sousuke didn’t think too much of it. He was still caught on the fantasy of Makoto touching himself. But that was not a scene he’d see today, if ever. Because with a resume like his, there was no way anyone but Sousuke would be doing the preparation for his lover. 

Makoto had such a nice asshole, just the perfect color and springiness. Despite his skittish nature, Makoto was also very trusting to those he allowed into his inner circle, which made it easy to stretch him. Sousuke had to do very little to attune the man’s body to touch. He would have made an admirable harem boy, if only they lived in a universe without Rin and Haru.

He pushed thoughts of those two away. Instead he focused on digging his three fingers into the soft channel, and shifting them to elicit lewd moans from his partner. He touched and touched and touched Makoto until it looked like the man couldn’t take any more teasing. 

“Ready?” Sousuke had somehow found himself between Makoto's legs, cock in hand, and covered in oil all over.

“Please!” Makoto's needy plea drove Sousuke forward. 

Sliding into Makoto was actually the best feeling he had ever experienced. The brown-haired man’s body was slick and tight, and it tensed around him. Sousuke felt welcomed. Rin and Haru felt good, but with them he realized something had been held back. He moaned deeply, surprising both he and Makoto. 

The other man giggled. “This feels good.”

“It does,” Sousuke agreed.

For the next while, pleasure saturated their fucking. Kindly and patiently they loved each other, far more in tune with each other than Sousuke would have thought possible. Slowly his body moved towards climax and he drove himself into the heat and love. His orgasm bloomed and overtook his motions. He lost himself in a white-hot space where nothing but glorious pleasure existed.

Lingering in that sweet space, he grasped Makoto’s cock and stroked him to his peak as well. The keening sounds Makoto made curled into his very bones. 

Sweaty and swimming in positive feelings, the two lay tangled in the tiny bed. 

“Nanase’s a fool,” Sousuke said. 

“So is Rin,” Makoto replied. 

They sat with the weight of their actions, the presence of the two men they idolized and loved for once a bit less palpable. If someone had asked Sousuke right then what the hell he thought he was doing, he’d just have told them to fuck off so he could enjoy the feeling of Makoto’s strong muscles and loving arms. 

He had fed the warmth inside him, that private place where he was respected, and he could never go back. 

***

Letting go of the plan to intercept Momo’s ship was much like unclenching a fist. Once the digits opened, at first the crescents where the nails bit in felt raw, but soon having a full range of motion felt natural and powerful. But instead of a literal hand opening up, it was a span of two weeks opening up. 

Over the course of those two weeks, Sousuke let himself become a part of Makoto's life.

Helping Makoto around the shop was easy. Sousuke liked helping others, liked working for the person he cared about. Nothing gave him greater satisfaction, really. As he dragged clay and merchandise around (as best as his shoulder would allow), he felt useful. 

Letting Makoto’s family dote on him was uncomfortable at first, but their friendliness and his deep need for acceptance quickly found each other. 

Letting his feelings of desire out resulted in the best sex he’d ever had. It was as simple as following the primal attraction Makoto’s body held for him. 

The guilt, though… the guilt always clung to the edges of his consciousness like a monster lurking in the places just out of sight. Neither Sousuke nor Makoto was even willing to consider dropping their devotion to the men they’d pledged their lives to, but the threat that the happiness they were building could possibly sever those essential bonds was enough to make both feel anxious.

But then, sometimes Sousuke did wonder, truthfully, if he could have Makoto as his one and only.

One day, as they were relaxing in the evening, the pair returned to the topic of Nanase’s request for Sousuke to find Makoto. Pure joy brightened Makoto’s face. 

“So what you said earlier...back when I first saw you?" Makoto said. "You said something like Haru wanting me to come to the palace?”

“Yes," Makoto said. "But he didn’t ask permission from Rin.”

“That sounds like Haru. He’s so stubborn,” Makoto giggled. “Now that I know what I know, and that you’ll be there too, I’ll go.”

“Nanase doesn’t know Rin,” Sousuke disagreed. “I know the palace and how it operates. If you get caught, you’ll be killed. It didn't really matter to me before, but...”

“Haru’s happiness is more important,” Makoto said, determined. “He needs me.”

An ugly possessiveness, familiar in its intensity but unfamiliar in its target, gripped him. “Don’t do it,” Sousuke said. 

“Sousuke?” Makoto sensed something amiss in his lover. 

“Haru and Rin are in love. We should leave them be,” Sousuke said. “For our own sakes.”

“I can’t just abandon Haru when he needs me!” Makoto raised his voice. 

“And I can’t let you throw your life away for him!” Sousuke shouted right back. 

“Sousuke…” Makoto was cowed. 

Realizing how much he’d given away of his own feelings, Sousuke clammed up. Makoto embraced him, strong arms calming and distracting him. They kissed. 

Much later, Sousuke finally gave in. “Fine. Follow after me to the palace when I go,” he said. “Stay outside the palace and I’ll sneak you in.”

***

Two weeks passed by quickly. The day of _The Otter_ ’s arrival back in Iwatobi, Sousuke woke up sour and anxious. His whole body ached with no particular cause. It wasn’t like him to be so affected, so moody. 

He and Makoto danced around each other: some moments preciously close, others brutally distant and preparing for separation. Sousuke had already arranged a camel and provisions for Momo and it was waiting for him the morning of _The Otter_ 's arrival. The plan was to for Sousuke to set off as soon as Momo’d been acquired so as not to lose him nor any more time.

That meant that between Sousuke and Makoto, every moment was the last. Every glance, every touch. As soon as Sousuke left for the docks to get Momo, they would not see each other again until Sousuke snuck Makoto into the palace. Their last kiss lingered on Sousuke's lips as he belated went to fulfill his duty. 

Everything would have been perfectly melancholy except for one small detail which threw all his plans out of whack. That was, when _The Otter_ docked in Iwatobi, a loudmouthed redhead was not in the crew. 

“Oh, we had Momo,” a sailor said. “But he joined a different boat at our destination. Would have passed through here yesterday. _The Scarab_ would be a day away by now.” 

Calculations passed through Sousuke’s head. Camels...10 miles an hour... No. It didn’t matter how long the journey would take. There was no guarantee Momo would come back to Iwatobi on another return trip. He had no choice but to follow him, on camel, and catch up to him. 

He gave the sailor a note to pass to Makoto, then dashed off downriver.


	13. Last Night at the Inn

“You mean to tell me this whole time you’ve been chasing beetles?!” Sousuke bellowed. 

The old boat rocked back and forth in the harbor. The wooden cabin was cramped and smelly, the kind found on boats that had only made a vague attempt at luxury. Noonday sunbeams shone through slats in the roof. The small space made Sousuke look monstrously imposing as he towered over the smaller redhead curled up on the floor. Momotarou Mikoshiba clutched several cages stuffed with big, flailing beetles to his chest. He seemed to be under the misunderstanding that Sousuke was after his beetles. 

“Stupid Seijuro doesn’t understand!” Momo wailed. “This is beetle season! And Iwatobi has the greatest beetles!”

Sousuke sighed. This kid was just as airheaded as his brother. But instead of women, apparently insects filled the empty space between his ears. 

“You’ve been requested at the palace by your brother, the Head Keeper of the royal harem,” Sousuke reprimanded. “He speaks for the prince and princess. By fooling around here, you’ve directly obeyed royalty.”

“But I don’t want to go to the palace,” Momo whined. “There aren’t any bugs there and Seijuro probably already has all the girls.”

Sousuke was done arguing. He reached down and plucked one of the cages from the boy. “I’ll carry this for you. Now let’s go.”

It had taken a few days to find Momo, but now Sousuke was finally headed back to the palace. He sent a second note to Makoto, letting him know where he was and that he was now starting his return journey for real.

***

An unsympathetic sun beat down on Sousuke’s head. Searing heat filled his lungs. The sand stung his face in waves of tiny pricks, pummeling what little good nature he had straight out of his head. The desert was physically demanding. 

Contrary to expectations, Momo was actually a decent traveler, if one could ignore the reason that they were traveling so damnably slow was because Momo couldn’t be coaxed within 10 feet of a camel. But he was quiet and focused and kept up a decent pace.

By the time night fell, Sousuke’s shoulder was killing him and he nearly fell off his camel when he spied an oasis. Momo surprised him again by being helpful setting up camp. Sousuke found himself wondering just how strong and talented Seijuro’s little brother was that he seemed right at home in the wilderness. 

Once they had set up sleeping materials, Momo pulled a small cage containing a single beetle out of his tunic. “Heh heh~” he laughed. “He’s the best beetle, and I bet you didn’t think I could keep a beetle alive in the desert.”

Nevermind, the younger Mikoshiba was a lunatic.

“Go to sleep,” Sousuke said, leading by example. 

**

Shouting.

Sousuke blinked. He hadn’t even realized he’d been asleep. The air was cool and the sky dark blue and sprinkled with stars. 

The scuffling and shouting grew clearer and Sousuke realized that two strangers, a man and a boy, were in their camp. He sat up to see the camel being led away by them.

He’d never dealt with thieves, but he had pride, dammit, plus all their provisions were on the camel. He lurched to his feet and shouted at them. The man leading the camel appeared unaffected, but the boy headed back for Sousuke. 

Sousuke charged, leaping over the slightly stirring figure of Momo between them. What Sousuke lacked in prowess he made up for in size and simply tackled the boy to the ground. The boy had dark hair that covered one eye and quickly flipped them but Sousuke swiftly brought his knee to the boy’s groin and reversed their positions again. Sousuke couldn’t help thinking the boy’s stoic face reminded him of Nanase.

“Hey!” behind him came the shout of the man, red hair obscured by a hood, who held a squirming Momo. 

Sousuke’s eyes widened. He struggled to evaluate the situation. If Momo was injured, he’d lose everything, but if he allowed himself to be caught—

Searing pain bloomed along the front of his shoulder. A knife wielded by his small black-haired opponent bit into his flesh. Somehow, Sousuke broke away before the boy could make another plunge of the blade. But there was nothing he could do now, crumpled and in pain. 

He watched as Momo was kicked to the side and the thieves made their escape. 

Then, unexpectedly, a camelback figure materialized out of the evening dark. With a deft swing of a sword, the swordsman brought one of the thieves down. Angling the blade to the other side, he sliced through the second. He kept riding on until skidding at a stop in front of Sousuke. Black silk slippers crunched into the sand when the man dismounted. A familiar green robe followed when Makoto went down on his knees to grab Sousuke.

“Sousuke!” Makoto shouted. His eyes gleamed brightly, his faced pinched with fear. “Sousuke! Sousuke!”

“I’m…fine…” Sousuke grunted. 

“Don’t move, are you hurt?!” Makoto continued. 

“Knife…got me,” Sousuke said. “Get Momo.”

“No, I won’t leave you!” Makoto said. “This is my fault for not warning you about the bandits in the area. If I’d gotten here sooner… This is all my fault.”

“Makoto,” Sousuke said, cupping Makoto’s face with his good arm. “Shut up. Get Momo.”

“Y-yes,” he said, startled, but calmed by the direct order. 

Sousuke had a few moments to stare at the cold, vast and beautiful sky and feel twin warmths of his blood trickling into his armpit and his heart thundering. Then the other two were back at his side. Momo looked panicked.

“Sousuke?!” Momo said. “What happened?! Are you okay? Oh my god, did you know you’re bleeding?” 

“Bandits,” Sousuke explained. 

Makoto began removing his striped shawl to treat the wound. Momo quickly removed his yellow tunic, placing it under Sousuke. The pained fluffer halted his lover. 

“Don’t get your shawl dirty. There’s ointment and bandages. In…the bag on the camel,” he said.

Momo jumped up to help, but Makoto shook his head. 

“It’s too dangerous to go over there, I'll get it,” Makoto said.

Because of the angle he was at, Sousuke could only watch Momo’s tense face watching Makoto return to the camel.

“Momo. Clothes,” Sousuke grunted.

“Huh?!”

_“Take my shirt off,”_ Sousuke said with more force so the distracted idiot would understand.

After too long of time, Makoto was back, digging the supplies Sousuke promised out of the satchel. His face was tight and pale but he went about dressing Sousuke’s wound without hesitation. He got out all the supplies but then hesitated.

“Water!” Momo shouted. “He’s gonna get sand inside him.”

Makoto lurched into action, dripping the cool liquid from a skein over the open gash. He then fumbled with the jar containing Sousuke’s strongest pain ointment. As much as he craved the relief, he needed a proper disinfectant.

“The one in the green jar,” he groaned.

“Sorry!” Makoto yelped. He plucked at the cork lid several times before it popped off. Calmed by the eucalyptus scent of the oil being rubbed on his body, he said, “Makoto, you’re doing fine. Use that other one in the yellow jar.”

Momo sprung into action and yanked out the cork, releasing a pungent rosemary scent. He dripped it across Sousuke’s shoulder. 

“Bandage,” he requested. 

Although Makoto lifted up Sousuke’s torso, it was with trembling hands, and again it was Momo who pulled out the linen strips and wound them around Sousuke’s body. When the boy finished, he eagerly asked, “What next?”

“Momo, stay right here.” Sousuke said. “Don’t go anywhere, understand? Just keep lookout.”

“Yes!” Momo leapt to his feet and peered eagerly off into the moonlit desert expanse.

Sousuke frowned, “Makoto.”

“I…I think I killed someone.” Makoto was trembling. 

With his good arm, and without hesitation, Sousuke embraced this beautiful, terrified man. It was too much trouble to keep his head up, so he leaned in close to Makoto. “You saved me.”

“But I…I hurt someone. I wasn’t thinking. I just thought they had killed you and…I’m so glad you’re alive.” Tears splashed against Sousuke’s face from above. He held Makoto, feeling keenly the love he had tried to deny so many times. Yet the words wouldn’t come when his heart was too full to speak them. There was no such thing as relief from a love this ebullient, no expression that could convey it. 

“The bandits’re moving!” Momo pointed. “The big one’s trying to help the small one! They were playing dead!”

Makoto gasped.

“Where’s your sword, mister? Can I borrow it?!” Momo said.

“Stay put,” Sousuke grunted. Then he looked at the relief on Makoto’s face.

“Ah! Two more bandits are coming down the road!” Momo gasped. “Whoa, that short one looks like me!”

Makoto stopped in his tracks and watched. Presumably the other two bandits simply took their wounded compatriots away because Momo’s running commentary included nothing about the loss of their camel or Makoto’s horse. 

But when Makoto lurched down again, he looked as pale as before. 

“Thank goodness they weren’t dead. But he was just a boy. He…he looked like Haru. I almost killed a boy.” Makoto mumbled. 

“Why do you two of those guys looked like me?” Momo interrupted. “Do you think I have secret brothers?”

Sousuke grunted. That would be possibly the worst news he’d heard, other than the fact that he might have lost all functioning in his arm. 

 

*** 

Despite the utter foolishness of leaving the watch to a Mikoshiba, Sousuke felt there was no choice. He and Makoto were utterly depleted after moving camp, a precaution in case the bandits returned to the old camp. They’d been riding for hours and the sun was coming up. Makoto constructed a much-better-than-Sousuke’s makeshift shelter and the two grown men collapsed inside it, leaving Momo to stay nominally alert.

Pain as searing as the noontime sun blazing down above awoke the royal fluffer. He noticed first that Makoto was haunted but awake and Momo slept blissfully. Sousuke made noises of discomfort, and Makoto quickly reached to undo his soiled linen bandages.

“Sorry, I didn’t want to wake you up to change your bandage,” Makoto apologized. 

“Don’t worry,” Sousuke said. With Makoto’s face so close, he only wanted one thing at the moment, and it was easily enough attained when he cradled the back of the man’s head and brought those soft, pouting lips to meet his own. 

“I love you,” Sousuke blurted.

“I!” Makoto turned a precious shade of pink, the perfect crescents of his eyelashes fluttering. “I love you too!”

“I love you,” Sousuke repeated. There was so much of that feeling in his heart that no amount of repetition could deplete the reservoir. 

“I do too,” Makoto said, smiling. 

If there was one good thing that came out of the bandit attack besides the obvious bonus of Makoto’s companionship, it was that Makoto knew quite a bit about traveling this part of the desert. He knew when to walk, when to rest, where each oasis was, where to avoid because of snakes/bandits/etc. It now made total sense to Sousuke how Makoto had evaded Prince Rin’s search.

“My family just used to trade along this route to the capital a lot,” Makoto brushed off the compliments.

Momo was equally impressed with “Sousuke’s boyfriend”—though the redhead had been sworn to secrecy about the matter. He couldn’t shut up about how cool Makoto had been saving them in the night and raving about each little trick he showed them. 

It was late afternoon and Makoto stopped to look at the side of the road.

“I think we’ll reach the capital tomorrow,” Makoto said, examining a rock pile. 

“Woooooow!” Momo said. “Did you hear that, Pyunkoto?” He spoke to his caged stag beetle, which he’d named after his new idol.

“Should we set up camp here?” Sousuke asked.

“No, there’s an inn just a bit away. I was thinking we could stay there?” Makoto smiled.

Sousuke caught the drift immediately. Not only did he really need to sleep on a bed to rest his wounded shoulder, he needed to confirm his intimacy with Makoto.   
As Makoto predicted, by dusk they reached a small adobe inn in a cluster of small buildings that resembled a village. It wasn’t crowded and they easily got a room and space in the tavern. Fortunately, because Momo idolized Makoto now, Sousuke wasn’t worried about the boy slipping off in the night and got him a separate room. He assured him that they were ALL going to the palace and that seemed to please the bug lover. 

“Are we really all going though?” Makoto asked as they sat finishing supper in the tavern part of the inn. “That’s different than the original plan.”

“Yes,” Sousuke said. 

“Even though you think Rin would kill me?”

“Why would the prince kill you? Did you do something bad?” Momo chimed in.

“Uh, it’s complicated,” Makoto began but Sousuke cut him off.

“Makoto did nothing. Rin stole the man that he loves.”

“Rin stole you, Sousuke?” Momo said. “What?”

Makoto giggled. His laugh was infectious, and soon all of them were laughing, even though Momo had no idea why. 

**

Sousuke rested on the bed as Makoto locked the door and put their things in order.

The talk of a plan wasn’t brought up again. Makoto didn’t like to take the initiative on things, and neither did Sousuke, to be honest. Nanase never would either for that matter, meaning that everything would come down to Rin. It always did. 

Red hair and flashing eyes passed through Sousuke’s thoughts until deep green eyes and brown hair climbed on top of him. Makoto was on all fours, afraid to touch him for fear of injuring him but yearning for him all the same. Sousuke smiled and Makoto leaned down to kiss him. 

He reached up with his good arm to card through Makoto’s hair. His hands caressed down the man’s shapely neck to feel his firm body over his clothes. Makoto sighed. The soft robes did little to conceal the toned body underneath. The man flexed into Sousuke’s touch, and Sousuke dove under the waistband of his lover’s loose pants to get better accustomed with the heat and shape of his lover’s arousal. 

It didn’t go unnoticed that Sousuke’s bad arm hadn't moved, but Makoto was so easily distracted by the fondling of his balls that it went uncommented upon. The gentle man canted his hips in reaction, making it easier for Sousuke to rub his fingers across the tender skin, and with the assistance of his magical oil, slip inside his body. 

Watching Makoto gyrate above him, rotating on an axis of his fingers took Sousuke’s breath away. He couldn’t think of anything he had done to deserve this man.

Makoto lowered himself down the shaft of Sousuke’s fingers until he hit he the webbing. “More…” He begged. “Sousuke…”

He drove his fingers up, twisting and dragging a pleased yelp from his lover. He arched and groaned. “Sousuke, I want your cock. I’ll be gentle. Please, please.”

Sousuke nodded inserted another finger. He hoped he’d make it to the actual sex part.

“I’m ready…” Makoto said.

“Who do you think you’re talking to? I’ll know when you’re ready,” Sousuke said. 

“Please!” 

“Help,” Sousuke said. He braced his cock with his hand. 

“Oh,” Makoto said. He lowered himself, hole twitching around the soft, blunt head of his lover’s dick before he fitted the whole shaft into his channel. With characteristic care he rose and fell, establishing a sensual, perfect rhythm.

The friction built quickly, and Makoto never slowed. Sousuke had rarely given up so much control before with Makoto, but he found himself completely comfortable with it. 

“Next time,” Sousuke moaned. “Want you inside me.”

“Ah!” Makoto blushed, taking Sosuke’s dick deeper on that thrust. He shook as precum began to leak from the tip of his dick. “Yes! Yes, so close!”

With only that warning, Makoto’s body tightened around Sousuke and he shuddered in climax. Wet warm seed splattered onto Sousuke’s abdomen as Makoto came, squeezed tightly around Sousuke’s cock. 

Makoto caught his breath while filled to the hilt. 

“I can…keep moving,” Makoto offered, gingerly raising his hips.

The motion was pleasant on his cock, but Sousuke grabbed Makoto’s wrist instead and drew him down into a kiss. Getting the message, Makoto dismounted, and replaced the pressure with the firm grasp of his hand.

“Yeah,” Sousuke grunted into Makoto’s mouth. 

The rest was easy. He let Makoto bring him to the edge with squishy, slick strokes and wet, messy kisses. He let Makoto steal his breath and jerked when a hand closed firmly around the head of cock. 

He wanted to announce his impending climax but then he was already there in that soul-stealing white space.

His orgasm spilled over between them as Makoto groaned into his mouth.

Still shaking from the force of his climax, Sousuke shakily pulled his lover into an embrace, a fierce hold that Makoto reciprocated. They were both panting heavily and the world was spinning and they were filthy and Sousuke felt moderately happy. 

“Now,” he said. 

He looked at Makoto with meaning. 

He wanted Makoto inside him tonight when everything was right; before there could be any doubts or wounds to their relationship from the impending confrontation with Rin and Haru. 

Makoto flushed a pleasing shade of red and then buried his head in the crook of Sousuke’s neck. “Yes…” Then he looked him in the eye with adorable determination. “Yes, I will!”

Sousuke laughed.

“Was that embarrassing?” Makoto said. 

“You’re a good guy,” Sousuke. 

“Um, I’m not ready yet, would it be okay to wait a little?”

Sousuke simply kissed him. They languidly made out and caressed each other’s heated bodies. Gradually a soft shuffling caught their ears. Sousuke tensed, fearing some sort of danger—thief, animal, Nagisa, Rin. He strained his ears to listen, Makoto doing the same. When the soft moaning began he realized there was absolutely nothing to fear.

“Is Momo masturbating?” Makoto said quietly.

“Heh,” Sousuke laughed. “I used to do the same thing listening to Rin.”

Makoto flinched, thinking he’d brought up a sore subject. “Sorry,” he said.

Sousuke laughed again. “I must have become someone worth jacking off to.”

“You’re wonderful!” Makoto was quick to praise. “And I never thought about doing that when Haru and Rin were…doing it.”

“I did it every night,” Sousuke said. He wasn’t sure why he was so glib but now that words were flowing out of his normally taciturn mouth he couldn’t stop them. “Nagisa was the most vocal.”

“I can imagine that,” Makoto laughed.

They slid into an increasingly ecstatic embrace. Makoto’s hands were everywhere, touching and reassuring and exploring as if he’d never felt Sousuke before. The stoic man felt desired in ways he’d never even fantasized before. When the unmistakable heat and stiffness of Makoto’s erection brushed against him, he knew it was time for the next stage. 

He gently pushed Makoto away so that he could flip onto his stomach. He dipped fingers into the oil and for the first time in a very long time since his early experiments, he reached into the crease between his buttocks. 

He wet the area generously, creating a slick that reached from his tailbone to his balls. He rubbed himself in circles to loosen his hole and relax himself to touch. He tapped the pucker, readying himself, before sinking one finger inside. 

The gasp was not his but Makoto’s. He smirked and sunk his finger deeper, lifting it out to replace it with two. His skilled fingering allowed him to put on a sexy show, one that went to his own cock as well. He wasn’t very experienced with receiving pleasure from his ass, but the heavy want to be joined to Makoto was fine encouragement. 

Suddenly an unexpected pressure pressed against his insides, registering seconds later as Makoto’s fingers. 

“I’m sorry… You’re just so…”

“Don’t stop,” Sousuke said. 

Makoto’s fingers searched for Sousuke’s most sensitive spots, never yielding until they got a moan from their target. He inserted another to tap insistently at a place Sousuke would put money on to be his prostate. He moaned, never imagining it could feel this good to be fingered.

Sousuke’s ass was stuffed with fingers. He felt full—full physically, heart full of appreciation, mouth full of lewd noises. He could hear Makoto breathing heavily behind him and felt those fingers, beautiful long strong fingers filling him. He couldn’t imagine Makoto’s cock inside him could feel any more intimate than this.

Sousuke buried his face in the pillow, the edge of orgasm thrumming through him. Makoto held him from the inside as he gasped and clenched in preparation for overwhelming pleasure to course though his sex-tortured body. 

The sweet sensation in his ass rolled outward in an absolute wave, and Sousuke ached so pleasantly before succumbing to his twitching, shuddering climax. 

When he came down, he realized that his ass was empty, and Makoto was gently stroking his back.

“Um, I guess that was good then? I won’t do it then.”

“No, Sousuke said firmly. “Do it.”

“But you won’t be able to...”

“Come inside me, Makoto,” Sosuke said, and the flush that graced Makoto’s face spread from ear to ear. 

Sousuke was further rewarded with the slick rub of Makoto’s cock as it rubbed against the slick of his backside. He felt his hole twitch with anticipation. Makoto kept him waiting a long time, enough that exhaustion and buzzy arousal competed to drench his skin in hot and cold sweat. 

A large hand in the middle of his back stilled his motions. The head of Makoto’s cock wedged against his entrance. He heart leapt to his chest as he felt the dull intrusion. 

“Are you okay? I’m going to…uh…” Makoto said. 

“Yes,” Sousuke said.

He was rewarded with the sensation of thick cock sliding into his ass. He wished he wasn’t so exhausted and sated to enjoy it more, but what with they were about to face in the palace, it really was now or never. 

Makoto’s stuttering breath warmed him, and he felt his lover slide out and back in with increasing frequency. 

“You feel so good,” Makoto praised. “Sousuke.”

Sousuke groaned in reply. He wasn’t experiencing the sharp pleasure that could build into orgasm, but he was still warm and happy being used by the man he loved. A man who deserved his love. 

“Fill me, Mako,” Sousuke encouraged in husky breaths.

Makoto whined, and his cock twitched. 

“Love you,” Sousuke whispered.

Makoto cried out and stuttered out his climax. When he quickly pulled out, drops of his cum leaked out and down Sousuke’s leg. He groaned and let his body go slack with exhaustion. 

“Are you okay?” Makoto was worried for his partner.

“Never been better,” Sousuke said and found that despite the come leaking out of his sore ass, a knife wound to his already wrecked shoulder, an uncertain future and a too-small bed he truly meant it. 

Makoto smiled and dressed Sousuke’s pathetically disheveled wound one more time before they fell asleep in each other’s arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bandits are our friends from High Speed 2: Ikuya, Asahi, Nao and Natsuya. This is not important to the plot whatsoever. It was just at the time I wrote this section, High Speed -Free! Starting Days- had already come out so I thought the fic would be incomplete without including EVERY SWIMMER. I later gave up on that idea.


	14. Not-So-Triumphant Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The tension and violence continue.

Mid-morning light cast the room at the inn in a warm golden glow. From the light, Sousuke could tell it was later than they’d planned to get up, so he was surprised that Momo hadn’t come knocking on their door. He lazily rolled towards Makoto only to find that the other man was no longer lying next to him. 

A flick of a tongue against his cock alerted him to where Makoto had gone. If he wanted to wake him up with a blowjob, he wouldn’t complain. It was getting late though, so he hoped it would be quick. 

When Makoto kept teasing his cock with little flicks and light mouthing at the head, he blinked his eyes open and leaned down to look. “We don’t have all—”

A curly blond head grinned up at him.

“Nagisa?!” Sousuke said in shock. His jaw did not return to its upright and locked position. A very bad feeling was rushing up through his lungs, stealing his breath away. 

“You caught me!” Nagisa stuck his tongue out playfully. It dripped lewdly. “If only you’d stayed asleep just a little bit longer!”

Sousuke was actually speechless.

“Sorry, I know you weren’t expecting to see me again. But the thing is, Makoto’s probably at the palace by now and you really should wake up.”

That news had far more power to rouse Sousuke than a blowjob. He grabbed the blond’s shoulder. “He what?”

“Don’t you even want to know what we’re doing here? No fun,” Nagisa pouted. “Makoto left before sunrise toward the capital. Let’s go!”

The gears started to turn in Sousuke’s head. “Wait. So why are you even here, Nagisa?”

“To help you,” Nagisa said. “Well, and Makoto.”

“You helped him escape?!” Sousuke said.

“Even if you refuse to believe it, we actually came to help you,” said a familiar voice. Rei, holding his long rifle from the palace, spoke from the doorway where he’d clearly been standing guard. “Now Nagisa, Sousuke—we should be going.”

 

**

On the short trip toward the palace, Sousuke nursed the betrayal settling in his heart. It was an ugly feeling, one exacerbated by his own guilt at how he hadn’t resolved his feelings toward Rin. His lover though, had clearly been truer in his feelings toward his own albatross. 

After all, the only reason Makoto could have left was to steal Nanase and run away before Rin or Sousuke could do anything about it.

He dumbly followed his yellow and purple-haired compatriots as they wove through the dusty alleys of the city until the narrow passages widened into grander boulevards on the approach to the palace. Homesickness gripped Sousuke for the first time when he was surrounded by increasingly more elegant marbles and majestic palms. He was returning at last to the confines of his home, and confrontation with his destiny now was inevitable.

Rei took them around to a small gate situated at the base of the grand wall of the palace. After looking both ways, he twisted the gate sideways, dislodging it. 

“Forget you ever saw this, Yamazaki,” Rei said, gingerly placing the gate to the side. Nagisa bounded forward, slipping into the cramped, dark tunnel. 

Sousuke sighed and nodded. Now he knew where the miscreants had escaped. He was just glad that they trusted him enough to keep the escape route secret that they didn’t blindfold him. Once inside, though, he realized it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. It was very dark, and he lost his bearings completely, guided only by Nagisa’s scrambling and prattle in front of him. 

“Sorry, Sou-chan, I know it’s a little tight for you in here. But if we want to stop Makoto before he kidnaps Haru, we have to sneak in! Plus Makoto’ll probably come out this way, so we can stop him in the act. Ha ha!”

“Shut up,” Sousuke grumbled. “Hush,” Rei reprimanded them both. 

The silence telegraphed Nagisa’s pout quite effectively. 

After a long enough period that Sousuke longed for daylight desperately, the tunnel brightened and he tumbled into a pool of churning water. After floundering in panic, he quickly found that he could stand in the waist-deep channel. 

“Betcha didn’t know I could swim!” Nagisa boasted nearby. “Ah, wait, I’ve got to help Rei.”

The finally member of their party stepped into the water gingerly and breathed a sigh of relief. “I can walk just fine, Nagisa.”

“Remember how you almost drowned on the way out because you didn’t know how to swim? And you didn’t know it was shallow enough to stand? I saved you!”

“Yes, I would like to forget that,” Rei said, pushing up his glasses. “Now let’s hurry.”

The watery passage brought them to a familiar exit, one that had Sousuke cursing when he saw familiar mosaic tiles and high glass ceiling. “You got out through the pool…”

“We actually had to leave out the window and come BACK through the pool,” Nagisa explained. “To throw poor Ai-chan off. I hope he’s okay.” Sousuke said nothing, only thinking that it was a little late to worry about the consequences of their impetuous break-out. 

He pulled himself out of the pool, shoulder trembling.

The harem was wide and majestic, its glittering pool casting sparkling sunbeams against satin-ensconced recesses. Colorful pillows piled in corners on top of tiled floors and against clean, tiled walls. But the harem’s expanse was strangely empty, not even an errant twitter echoing off the high ceilings.

Sousuke glanced at his vacant, dark chamber before heading away from it.

“Where are you going, Yamazaki?” asked Rei, as he fumbled to deconstruct a bundle of items he’d kept above the water. 

“To Rin-chan’s room, duh,” Nagisa explained in Sousuke’s place. “Makoto doesn’t have a plan, so he’d be going right to Haru! And if Haru’s not here in the harem, Rin’s room is the only place he’d be!”

As Sousuke strode through the eerily empty halls, his singular focus made everything a bit hazy. The stairs disappeared beneath his feet, then tiles disappeared, then he was standing in front of the large wooden door adorned with gold filigree that protected Rin’s bedchambers from the rest of the world. Aware that he might only have the element of surprise to his advantage, he waited until Nagisa and Rei were by his side. Rei brandished his weapon.

“Sou-chan, I’ll push the door open and you can run in like WOOSH,” Nagisa said, brow low in concentration. 

He nodded.

On the other side of the door he would have to make his choice: Makoto or Rin. 

Makoto: the sweet man who fed him, cared for him, wept for him, but who ultimately ran from him. 

Or Rin: the haughty, regal beauty who ignored his existence and sacrifices and who loved another, but who had always given him purpose and a place. 

_God damn it, neither one of them is worth this._

With that thought, Sousuke relaxed. He shook his head at a perplexed Nagisa, then called out “RIN!” and flung the door open. He barged in only to see that the prince’s chambers were just as empty as the rest of the palace. The bed was made, suggesting that its inhabitant(s) had left as planned, rather than been made to flee.

A thumping noise quickly made itself known to the three intruders. Nagisa hopped over to a closet to investigate. He folded the panels back to reveal a familiar dark-skinned, red-haired boy who tumbled out of the closet when he tried to move, hitting the floor hard. He continued to squirm as Nagisa and Rei, followed by Sousuke, untied his makeshift bindings and gag. 

“—you saved me!” Momo gasped. “Thank you, Sousuke! I knew you were the best one!”

“You must be Momo?” Rei interrupted. “May we assume that Makoto brought you to the palace as a hostage and was unsuccessful in his negotiations?”

“He did! He kidnapped me and told me he was going to exchange me for someone else! But then we got here and there was no one here, so he just tied me up and put me in the closet.”

“You didn’t see where he went?” Rei questioned. 

“No. Where’s Pyunkoto?” the redhead shuffled back into the closet to look for his precious beetle. 

“We’ll come back for him,” Sousuke gruffed, grabbing Momo by the collar. “We have to find Makoto.”

Momo flailed against Sousuke’s grasp in protest, and he couldn’t be blamed for trying to escape, really, after having been dragged across the country and then kidnapped. “But he could be anywhere,” Rei said. “We have no clues as to where he could have gone and the palace is quite large.”

“Rei, don’t panic,” Nagisa encouraged. “You’re the best detective I know. And you’re so smart. You’ll think of something.”

Rei got a dopey look. “I am not the finest by any stretch, but I find myself to be more observant—”

“Ah, there!” Nagisa called. He pointed at a small white bead on the floor. “I know that!” He picked up the bead, examined it, then flung open another closet. There was a conspicuous open spot. “I know where they are!” 

Nagisa dashed out the door, and the others followed. 

“But Nagisa, how did you determine their location from a single bead?” Rei asked. 

“It’s from Rin’s wedding tunic. I’d recognized it anywhere,” Nagisa answered with confidence.

Sousuke’s heart dropped. The implications of that were…troubling no matter what reason the garment was pulled out of storage. 

“How would you even know something like that?” Rei asked, clearly a bit put out by having his detective’s spotlight pulled out from under him. 

“Rin and I played bride and groom once,” Nagisa said, “or twice,” a slight flush crossing his face. 

“Bullshit,” Sousuke said. “I never saw that.”

“Ah, Sou-chan, you don’t think Haru-chan was the first one Rin-chan ever invited into his chambers all on his own without your notice, did you?” Nagisa chided. Sousuke gritted his teeth. Leave it to Nagisa to circumvent every form of order and propriety. “Anyway, that was a long time ago but I guess he’s using it for real. We better hurry to the wedding pavilion.”

“And do you know where that is?” Rei countered.

“Ah ha, Rei-chan, you don’t think you were the first person I ever snuck out to see? I know where lots of things are.” Now it was the former guard’s turn to blush. 

As Nagisa ran them through narrow corridors and obscure rooms, Sousuke grudgingly admitted he was jealous. He had lived in the palace longer and didn’t know it half as well. If only he’d been as enterprising as Nagisa, he’d be of more help. A lesson he’d do well to keep in mind.

Finally they exited onto a balcony two stories above a courtyard full of flowering trees. Elegant branches canopied the square courtyard, except for a raised dais surrounded by low lattices choked with flowering vines. Standing on the dais with white blooms at their feet were Rin and surprisingly Nanase, surrounded by court officials in formal robes. To the side was a contingent from the harem, all dressed in their beaded and silken finest. Sousuke could hardly spare a glance to his charges when there was Rin to look at. Rin wore a white beaded tunic and pants in white with gold and red decorative threads. Nanase wore a blue-and-white floor-length gown that appeared to be adapted from a woman’s dress. Between them was a table with several ceremonial objects on it. Haru’s face wasn’t visible from their angle, but he could only imagine it was as impassive as ever. Rin didn’t look nearly as happy as one would’ve expected on a wedding day.

“You were right,” Rei whispered to his lover. 

“Haru-chan looks pretty, but so does Rin,” Nagisa sighed. 

“We’re not here as wedding guests to enjoy the ceremony,” Sousuke said.

“And they’re not getting married either,” Nagisa explained. “Look, that’s the engagement ring on the table.” How Nagisa knew these things, Sousuke did not know, but he trusted the blond. “I wanted to wear that,” Nagisa sighed, making both his boyfriend and Sousuke uncomfortable. 

“That’s the prince?” Momo said, finally able to stand solidly on his own feet. “He’s beautiful!” His cheeks had taken on a ruddy hue looking at Rin. _Lord, does this boy have to get a crush on every person he sees?_ Still, Sousuke approved of Momo’s choice of crush. The fluffer returned to gazing at the proceedings, scanning the audience for the face of his boyfriend. Not finding Makoto, he looked at the other balconies but no luck. There was another story of balconies under theirs—he hoped Makoto wasn’t directly below them. 

“How long’s the ceremony last, Nagisa?” Sousuke asked. 

“You really do trust me to know things!” Nagisa squealed. “But I’m sorry, I don’t know.”

“We are seeing nothing from this vantage point,” Rei pointed out. “We should split up and get closer. Makoto will have to make his move soon if he plans to interrupt the ceremony. I will keep this floor; Nagisa will take the first story. Sousuke, you are the only one who’s allowed to be in the palace, so you must take the ground level. Momo, you should return to Rin’s chambers in case Makoto returns there.”

Since the only one with complaints was Momo, Rei’s orders were followed. Sousuke exited the staircase, which spilled out on the ground floor near the dais. He looked at Haru’s slim, beautiful back. Rin’s grim face was clearly visible. The expression troubled him. What was going on?

Suddenly, something prickled long-buried instincts. He sensed a threat to Rin. He frantically looked at the audience and surroundings to hone in on whatever had tipped him off. Nothing seemed off until he saw it—the flash of a knife in the passage opposite him. 

The knife was in the hands of the very man he sought.

Makoto didn’t seem aware that he’d been noticed. The tall man leaned against a column, back of his head resting against it and eyes scrunched in concentration. The angle of his arm gave away the presence of the blade Sousuke had seen flash. 

There were a few precious seconds during which Sousuke could have tried to stop him, but he was frozen in place until Makoto emerged from the shadows. The desperate look on the man’s face made Sousuke’s blood run cold. 

Without thinking, suddenly his body was in motion, running through the councilors and across the few feet of the courtyard before he leapt up to the dais. Nanase stepped aside without even looking, as if he’d sensed Sousuke. In a fluid motion, Nanase joined the fluffer in pulling Rin out of the path of the impending attack. Makoto’s blade slashed down, and Sousuke ended up taking it across his chest from shoulder to ribs. 

Makoto screamed in shock. 

Sousuke grunted at the sharp pain cutting across his already wounded shoulder and running in a stinging line across his chest. Still, he grasped Makoto’s wrist and squeezed, forcing his lover to drop the knife. It clattered on the marble floor. Sousuke wrapped his good arm around the trembling assailant. 

“Makoto,” Sousuke said. “Makoto, stop.” Adrenaline elevated all his senses, but he tried to be calm. His thoughts tried to catch up. What should happen next? Rin was safe, right? Makoto needed to run away now, didn’t he? The guards would be on him…

Thwok. 

Sousuke felt the impact of the arrow into Makoto’s back at the same time he heard it. There were archers entering the balconies! He felt the impact of a second arrow in Makoto’s back before forcing his lover to his knees and covering him with his arms. “Stop!” he bellowed at the balcony.

Black hair swam in his vision. Haru skidded to the ground to block the other side of Makoto’s body. Grateful for the backup, Sousuke could see the confused archers looking for openings to not clip the prince’s beloved with their arrows. 

“Stop! Lower your weapons!” Rin commanded. His booming voice silenced the courtyard. All that could be heard afterward was the clattering and clinking as staves and spear rested against the flagstones. 

Rin’s shadows fell over Sousuke. His flushed face beautiful as always but harsh. Sousuke unconsciously feared punishment. 

“Thank you,” Rin said quietly. 

Then Rin was addressing the crowd, his citizens. “Guards! Take this man to the prison. This attack must be investigated, and the engagement is postponed until we get to the bottom of the attack. Tonight’s festivities are cancelled!” With that declaration, Rin strode off the dais. Sousuke knew he had mere second until the guards took Makoto away. He raised his lover’s chin. Makoto looked away, and refused to meet his gaze. 

“Don’t die before you can apologize to me and Haru,” Sousuke said. Pained green eyes flashed his way for a second before he was roughly manhandled away. 

Left alone with Haru, Sousuke sighed. “What happened when I was away? Why are you getting engaged to Rin?”

“We have to help Makoto,” Haru deflected. 

“We will,” Sousuke said firmly. “Now tell me what I asked.”

“I don’t know why,” Haru said slowly. “Rin was mad and said everyone was tired of him loving only me and no princesses and so they were forcing him to marry me.”

It wasn’t a lot to go on, but Sousuke pieced together the political puzzle Rin was facing. He’d probably turned down one too many marriage proposals for the court’s liking and was being taught some sort of lesson. 

“Makoto ever do something like that before?” Sousuke asked, changing the subject. Haru shook his head. 

“Come with me,” Sousuke said, and Haru followed him back to the harem. As expected, Rei and Nagisa were hiding in Nagisa’s old room. 

“Haru-chan, I missed you!” Nagisa threw his slim arms around the expressionless man.

“Are you alright, Yamazaki? You’re bleeding,” Rei said with concern. 

The slash had been forgotten in the thick of things, but now that it had been noticed, Sousuke realized his chest hurt like a bitch. He grunted and said, “Think of something,” before going to his chamber and dressing his newest wound. He felt a deep stiffness in his worn and injured shoulder joint. He could barely raise it now. He slathered his most powerful painkillers over his knife wounds and re-bandaged them with clean white cloth. Frowning at the blood-filled basin and its implications for his health, he nevertheless felt antsy to get Makoto out of the prison as soon as possible. He was already aware of how unpleasant the cells and guards were. 

“We have to tell him now,” Nagisa was saying when Sousuke rejoined the group.

“Tell me what?” Sousuke said.

“Not you,” Nagisa said. “Haru-chan. Anyway, we have to save Makoto-chan! Why did he have to try and kill Rin-chan? Still it was romantic, right?”

“It was not, Rei said.

“Help Makoto,” Haru reminded.

“Right,” Rei coughed. “We have to decide what to do.”

“Wait, Haru-chan!” Nagisa flustered as the black-haired man started walking off. “Don’t just go off on your own!”

“Aren’t we going to the prison?” Haru said.

“We need a plan first!” Nagisa insisted.

“You all go with Haru,” Sousuke decided. “I’ll go talk to Rin.”

“Wait,” Rei said. He faced Sousuke squarely and pushed up his glasses. “Please remember this one thing that I am about to say. You must tell Rin that he cannot kill Makoto. It is a matter of national security.”

“So cool, Rei-chan!”

Sousuke nodded, surprised that he’d come to trust Rei so much that he didn’t doubt the man’s dubious words.

“We’ll come meet you in Rin’s chambers once we get Makoto!” Nagisa promised, and then the three Iwatobi troublemakers left the harem.


	15. Climax

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's fair to say this is the climax of the story.

Sousuke was glad for something to do. Obviously his gut twisted thinking about what Makoto had done and how that constricted their future options, but at least the drama going on spared him for the next while of having to choose between his lovers. 

His heart raced as he approached Rin’s door for the second time that day.

He knocked, and upon hearing a shriek, threw the doors open and rushed in. Once again the chamber was empty of Rin, but this time, a single silver-haired boy stood in the middle of the room looking scared and distraught. 

“S-Sousuke?” Nitori gasped.

Sousuke grunted in surprise. 

“I’m so glad you’re back!” Nitori suddenly teared up. “Things have been so weird lately and I…I think Rin’s in trouble but I don’t know how to help him! Even though I’m not supposed to I came here to ask if I could do anything, but there’s no one here.”

That struck Sousuke as odd as well. He put Nitori’s and his own feelings behind them and focused on what could be done. “Did you see Rin going back to his room?”

“It was so confusing and people were everywhere,” Nitori said. “But I thought I saw him leaving the e-engagment courtyard with old people with the funny hats…”

_The councilors took Rin,_ Sousuke translated. He approached the slight boy and ruffled his hair. “It’ll be okay. You were right to look for the prince. We’ll find him together. Let’s go.”

“Okay!” Nitori said, still teary but warmed by Sosuke’s encouragement. “Let’s go!”

“Wait!” called a panicked voice from deeper in the room. Nitori squeaked in surprise as Momo tumbled out of the closet once again. Sousuke was impressed that Momo had done as instructed and returned to Rin’s room. “I was hiding like you said, but it sounds like things are bad and I don’t want to be here by myself! Take me with you, Sousuke.”

“Who is that?!” Nitori asked.

“Mikoshiba’s little brother,” Sousuke quickly explained. “Did you see anything here, Momo?”

“No, I swear!” 

“Let’s go then,” Sousuke said. “We’ll try the throne room. But not you, Momo. Nagisa and Rei will be coming here to meet us. You have to stay here and tell them to come meet us there.”

“Buuuuut…” Never had a Mikoshiba looked so crestfallen.

“It’s not a request,” Sousuke said. 

**

Sousuke would never say it, but he was glad to have allies, no matter how skittish or flakey. He found he trusted both the younger boys as much as he’d trusted Rei and Nagisa, so long as they didn’t try to foolishly to outstrip their limits. Although he, with his near-useless arm, was one to talk about staying within limits. 

Neither Sousuke nor Nitori was very clear on how to get to the throne room, so they took a few wrong turns. Nitori was still wearing finery from the ceremony, and tripped frequently in his slippery sandals. What this meant was that Sousuke had time to notice something quite alarming. No one in the palace was moving about as normal, but also no one was gossiping about the event that had just occurred. The mood was solemn. And also, the black robes of the top councilors were missing from the hallways. 

“Hurry,” Sousuke said. Nitori struggled along. At last they turned a corner to the grand entrance of the throne room. The giant doors were closed, and a contingent of guards stood in front of them. Immediately the pair of would-be-saviors shrank away, out of sight.

“Oh! If the doors are closed, at least Rin is safe in there!” Nitori said. 

“No. It’s the opposite,” Sousuke said. All his senses screamed that something unspeakably bad was happening to Rin. He knew from Rin’s “thank you” and Haru’s terse explanation that the councilors were focused on stripping power from Rin. They were probably enacting measures to ensure that right now.

“I know what to do!” Nitori said suddenly. He kneeled and pressed his ear against the wall. Sousuke immediately followed suit. 

“I don’t hear anything,” Nitori wailed after a minute. “I’ll try to listen harder, I’m sorry.”

“Neither do I,” Sousuke said. 

“What if they’re not in there at all?”

A misdirection? It hadn’t occurred to Soususke, but there were dozens of councilors and it would be impossible for them to be this still and quiet. 

Sousuke thought back and concentrated. Rin’s words to the crowd, what had they been? “The events are cancelled.” It had seemed like an afterthought to specifically mention that, but maybe he wanted to make it clear to someone that their plans weren’t going to happen. 

“The banquet hall,” he whispered.

“They were going to have us dance there tonight,” Nitori said. “Wait, is that where Prince Rin is now?”

Sousuke nodded. “We have to get there immediately.”

“But we have to let Nagisa and the others know we went there,” Nitori said. “I know, I’ll write a note and leave it here! But Nagisa can’t read. He never listened when I taught him! What are we going to do?”

“You stay here,” Sousuke said. “Tell them. We can’t leave a note anyway, it might be noticed. Even if Nagisa can’t read, other people can.”

“But I have to help Prince Rin!”

“You are. This is.” Sousuke said firmly. 

Nitori wibbled, then nodded. 

That was how Sousuke left his last ally and strode for the banquet room. It was not in the same wing as the harem, though one might have expected all bodily pleasures to be located in the same general area. Instead it was near the throne room, owning its role as a site of diplomacy. 

Fortunately, if there was only one rear entrance in the palace besides the butts of harem boys that Sousuke knew about, it was the one to the banquet hall. Occasionally, he’d had to escort new members of the harem from their presentation in the banquet hall to the harem. And he’d also had to escort female members of the harem to the banquet hall so they could brighten the place for the pleasure of foreign guests by mingling or dancing. 

It wasn’t a secret entrance, though, so he was surprised to find the small squat door unguarded. It didn’t even have a lock, so he went in, cautious to minimize the squeaking of the door and the scuffing of his feet on the stone tiles. 

Immediately he heard voices. They were orderly but loud and aggressive. He could tell someone was reading a list. He got closer, finally peeking around a corner.

Like a murder of crows, dozens of councilors in their long black robes clustered around Rin, who was still dressed in his wedding attire. His turban sat poorly on his head; he was disheveled from attempts to escape from the table, which he was chained to. 

Rin was spitting mad. “Shut up! I’ll never agree to anything!”

“We thought you might be beyond reason,” one councilor said. He glided up from the crowd, holding a chalice.

“If you do not agree to the limitation of power we just listed, we will have no choice but to remove your poison from us with a poison of our own.”

Sousuke wanted to scream. 

“Ha ha,” Rin said. “So you were going to poison me at my own engagement banquet.”

“You have many jealous whores, isn’t that right? One of them surely planned it,” a councilor said.

Sousuke’s breath caught in his throat. That was him, his harem, they were talking about. They were basically saying he would be to blame for Rin’s death! He gritted his teeth in anger. He would never do something like, nor would anyone in the harem…except for Makoto apparently, but he technically hasn’t a member anymore and Sousuke had a lot more thinking to do on that subject. 

“Ha! Do you think anyone would believe the mighty Rin Matsuoka, Prince of Samezuka, would be taken down by his harem?” Rin scoffed.

“You needn’t worry about the publicity,” the councilor sneered. “You just have to die.”

Sosuke’s brain raced. Rin was across the room from him and separated by a crowd of malicious people. Even as the councilor tipped Rin’s chin back and brought the cup to his lips, Sousuke couldn’t think of a plan to break through the councilors. And yet, Rin’s life was at stake. He had to act.

“STOP!” he yelled as he burst from the safety of the service hall. All eyes turned his way. Murmurs identified him as the strange man from earlier. The cup balanced on Rin’s lips.

“You can’t kill him! He’s your prince!” Sousuke shouted.

“You cannot stop us,” the councilors turned to look away, apparently unthreatened by him. Growling, Sousuke charged and fought his way through bony bodies towards Rin. Deadly red liquid spilled onto the prince’s bared, gritted teeth. Sousuke fought his way closer, but all he gained was a better image of the tears streaming down Rin’s cheeks and the foul scent of the concoction.

Scent. He finally had an idea. 

He fumbled in his traveling pouch for a familiar vial, one that he’d meant to dispose of much earlier. The Aphrodisiac From Hell probably couldn’t get all these geezers to drop what they were doing in favor of an impromptu geriatric orgy, but it would sure as fuck distract them. With a vicious swing, he smashed the glass vial against the flagstones. And then he grabbed a second vial of something else and chucked it at the councilor holding the evil cup to Rin’s lips. 

Two things happened.

First, Sousuke was grappled to the ground when the aphrodisiac seemed to have no effect. Second, his sloppy throw missed the councilor, but struck the cup instead, sending it sputtering across the table. Both the councilor and Rin cried out in pain.

Elated that Rin was spared, Sousuke barely minded that he was being trampled by bony feet and walking canes. But he knew it was only a matter of time before he lost consciousness before death and Rin would suffer the same fate.

Suddenly, the doors of the banquet hall opened with a KATHOOM. Feet stopped hitting him, shouts grew louder. The sound of steel and stomping. And then the feet were shuffling past him. 

“Don’t let them out the back door!” cried out a high, familiar voice.

Nagisa?

Sousuke rolled to his side, but all he could see were unfamiliar feet and legs.

“Listen up!” bellowed a deeper voice. Sousuke thought it sounded familiar too, but he couldn’t place it at all. “All you concillors leave the room through the front. Go to the throne room. Now!”

After most of the feet left the room, Sousuke managed to get his aching body upright. He stumbled towards Rin. Guards were helping the prince out of his poison-stained robes. They were basically holding him upright, supporting him as they peeled red splattered robes from his body. 

“Let me in, I’m a medic,” Sousuke lied.

The guards let Rin down, and the angry red streaks on Rin’s thigh caused by the poison became visible. Sousuke fumbled in his pouch for a balm that might neutralize the unknown poison. But he didn’t reach for Rin’s thigh. He went for the red burn marks at the corner of the prince’s mouth. Rin, looking rather incoherent, squirmed but allowed it. Only when Sousuke returned his attention to Rin’s thigh did he notice the prince’s cock was rock hard.

He felt a strong, incongruous pulse of arousal in his own groin. It seemed the potent aphrodisiac _was_ working after all. His hand gravitated towards Rin’s cock. The prince closed his eyes and nodded, embarrassment coloring his face. The guards were still looking, uncertain of whether to stop the imprudent behavior. Sousuke too hesitated, desperately trying to stave off the pendulous arousal.

“I’ll help!” Suddenly Nitori’s hands descended on Rin’s cock like twin white doves alighting from heaven or something. 

“It’s okay, we’re with the harem. I’m Mikoshiba!” said another voice, belonging to a lithe redhead. Whether Momo was convincing or not, the stunned guards backed up enough to allow the silver-haired boy to bring Rin off in a shuddering, crying, shameful mess. Sosuke finished applying balm, Nitori licked up Rin’s come and Momo acted authoritative and blocked the guards’ view the whole time.

“You can look now!” Momo said to the guards as Nitori wrapped the shirt off his back around Rin’s groin. 

“Take him to the medical wing,” Sousuke gruffed. The guards nodded, all of them red-faced, and carried Rin as gently as possible out of the room. 

Stillness engulfed the space and three remaining men.

Adrenaline still throbbed in Sousuke’s veins, along with powerful arousal, which he ignored. “What happened?”

“Everything went according to plan,” Momo answered. “Nagisa figured out what was going on. He’d already had, um, that Rei guy go talk to a general. We had to wait for General Sasabe to show up, but then he took control of the bad guards and we came in!”

“What did they do to Rin?” Nitori asked, big wet tears forming in the corners of his eyes.

“They tried to poison him,” Sousuke said. “Where’s Makoto?”

“With Nagisa and Rei,” Momo said. “Is he still your boyfriend?”

“I don’t know,” Sousuke said truthfully. Seriously, for real this time: relationship status wasn’t something he was going to be able to process today.

“We should go to Rin,” Nitori said. Sousuke agreed. “But Nagisa said—”

Sousuke grunted. “Leave it to them.” He stumbled to his feet. Nitori and Momo fitted themselves under his much larger arms to act as supports. Together they shuffled to the medical wing.


	16. Redemption

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, there's another climax to come :)

For the second time in his life, Sousuke lay in a hospital bed, staring at a world he didn’t believe he could heal enough to reach. But this time, the world was not the brightly lit one taunting him from outside the hospital windows, but a dark, intimate memory of warm touch and confident “I love yous” inside his mind. 

As for the state of the kingdom, he could only assume the attempted coup was effectively dealt with. There was plenty of whispering among the medical staff, but no disruptions or sounds of skirmish outside that would indicate a conflict. 

That gave him peace of mind that Rin was okay. 

But the coup in his mind raged on. After how far he’d gone to save Rin, he felt incredibly loyal once again. He was disturbed too by Makoto’s violent behavior. Had he ever really known Makoto? He began to wonder if the feelings of love that still echoed in his heart were merely amplified lust and need.

He had many visitors. 

Amakata, the librarian, brought him books. He asked her for some on the study of herbs. 

An aide of old Sasabe brought him some fruit.

Seijuro Mikoshiba listened to the whole story of Sousuke’s adventures with great gusto, and thanked him for bringing Momo safely to the palace. When Sousuke learned that Makoto was being hidden and treated in Sousuke’s chambers in the harem, his heart clenched with ambivalent emotions.

Nitori, who had valiantly continued bringing Rin off until the aphrodisiac ran its course, updated Sousuke on all the goings-on in the harem and on Rin’s condition (It was quickly improving).

Nagisa and Rei snuck in to give him the biggest news of all. 

“Tomorrow, Rin’s going to give a speech to the councilors,” Nagisa said excitedly. “Can you believe he’s had them imprisoned in the throne room for the past three days? That’s so princely of him!”

Sousuke thought about the miserable councilors, stewing in their own filth and failure, and probably with twisted little boners they couldn’t relieve themselves of, imprisoned on the stones of the empty throne room. How Rin was ever going to win them over, or if he even intended to, was beyond him. Maybe he’d have them all killed. It would be within his right. 

That, however, was not the big news.

“It’s time you knew the truth, Yamazaki,” Rei said. He sat in a chair next to Sousuke’s bed, while Nagisa flitted around. “About why we were following you in the desert.”

“Oh, you’re going to tell him?” Nagisa said. “I guess Sou-chan needs to know before the ceremony tomorrow.”

“Yes,” Rei agreed. “We were following you because I discovered something. After looking at the maps of the Great River Road, I found references to a temple in Iwatobi that I had not seen before. It appears that the temple had become ruins some time ago. I searched for more information and found even more curious details. It seemed that once the temple had not always been a temple, but a part of a palace.”

Sousuke wished that he was in a position to tell Rei to spit it out, but he was a literal captive audience in his hospital bed.

“The palace had been abandoned for many centuries, it seemed, except for the temple grounds. Once you learn the details, the story of the fall of that dynasty is an interesting devolution of a monarchy, a divine monarchy at that.”

“You know so much, Rei!” Nagisa praised.

“Yes, well, it required much research,” Rei preened. “In any case, I finally stumbled upon a document, which I asked Makoto, a local, to verify the authenticity of. It said that the Nanase family had been the occupants of the temple!”

“Haru-chan is a god!” Nagisa exclaimed.

“Nagisa! You gave away my story!” Rei reprimanded. 

“Oops!” Nagisa laughed.

“Well,” Rei continued disgruntled, “as Nagisa said, the Nanase lineage is the royal house of the former kingdom of Iwatobi, the builders of the Great River Road, long before Iwatobi was annexed by Samezuka. And the Nanase rulers claimed divine lineage from the Water God. Of course I imagined this to be preposterous, but further research into the archives yielded something of practical usage. That is, a decree forbidding the royal family of Iwatobi from ever being pressed into the service of a Samezuka, because gods could never serve a human ruler. I imagine this was successfully negotiated because as I said Iwatobi faded from greatness gradually and all records show a peaceable annexation.”

“So, you came after us to help free Haru,” Sousuke summed up.

“Yes,” Rei said. “Unfortunately—”

“Mako-chan went crazy and tried to do everything himself!” Nagisa interjected. “Stupid Makoto! He has friends! But it was for love…” The blond sighed.

“But there’s more,” Rei continued, disregarding his lover. “I have since discovered records in the Samezuka palace library that not only corroborate the ones from Iwatobi, I also had time to learn more about the Tachibana bloodline. It seems the Tachibanas were once retainers of the Nanases. Much of their history has been forgotten, but it appears that even as recently as Haruka’s grandmother’s generation, the Tachibana family were in contact with and offered assistance to the Nanases.”

“You left out the important part about the crest, Rei. Sou-chan, the Tachibana family has a crest. It’s got this fish thing that’s half black and half white. It’s scary! Aaaaand apparently there used to be myths that the first Tachibana was actually one of those fish, and the Nanase family used magic to make him human!”

“Ahem, I left that part out because it is clearly hyperbole and _myth_ ,” Rei coughed into his fist. 

After seeing Makoto defend Haru with such aggression, Sousuke couldn’t help wondering if there was some truth to that myth. A creature both black and white… Something divided into two natures… Makoto could be gentle and giving, yet possessive and needy to the point of violence. 

As Sousuke continued to process what he’d heard, a sense of calm descended on him. No matter what, Rin couldn’t own Nanase anymore. Not as a member of his harem, and depending on a legal scholar’s interpretation, not as a consort either. Sousuke scoffed. If only the councilors had known, they wouldn’t have had to resort to attempted regicide. 

“Is something funny, Yamazaki?” Rei inquired. 

“Rin’s still going to do what he wants anyway,” Sousuke answered. 

“I don’t understand why he would go against a clear mandate from his predecessors,” Rei said.

“He wouldn’t,” Sousuke said. “Rin’s obsessed with history.”

“Then I don’t see the issue?” Rei said.

“It’s complicated,” Nagisa answered quietly. 

The blond nudged his lover out of the room, kissed Sousuke on the cheek and said they’d come back tomorrow with an update of how Rin’s speech went. 

***

Nothing was wrong with Sousuke’s leg besides a few bruises, but he hobbled down the stairs to his chambers in the harem anyway. Surely fear slowed him as much as pain. 

The harem was the same as he remembered, big and bright and filled with echoing laughter. He stopped by Mikoshiba’s office first. It was always good to see the large, happy man who’d given Sousuke purpose when he was at his lowest. With the additional encouragement of his memories, he walked the dozens of difficult paces to his chambers. 

The shades were drawn, no doubt hiding their occupant in that dimness Sousuke recalled so well. There was no lock, so he knocked, then slowly opened the door. “Makoto, I’m coming in.”

A figure jerked on the bed, curling in on itself under the sheets. Sousuke allowed himself no wavering and walked directly to the bed. It sank under his weight, already creaking from the heavy mass of Makoto’s body. The bed looked lived-in, but the air didn’t smell bad, so Makoto’s wounds at least had not been festering, even if his mind had. 

Sousuke began, “Before you say anything—”

Makoto whimpered. 

“Before you say anything, I forgive you,” Sousuke said.

Makoto’s head popped up from its blanket shield. 

“You can’t! What I did was awful! How can you forgive me, Sousuke?” Makoto said, stricken.

“Rei talked to me,” Sousuke said evenly. “He talked to you too, didn’t he?”

Makoto nodded, frowning. “But that doesn’t have anything to do with what I did.”

“Maybe it does,” Sousuke said. “Maybe it doesn’t. It doesn’t really matter. But I know what it’s like to need a person as bad as you need Nanase.”

“I care about Haru, but I never felt anything other than that, like supernatural, I really mean that,” Makoto insisted. It seemed he’d been struggling to reconcile his potential magical lineage with his memories.

“I felt something,” Sousuke said. “Before you attacked Rin, I felt something. I knew Rin was in danger. It wasn’t magical; it was just instinct. You have instincts about Haru too, right?”

Makoto nodded.

Sousuke sat in silence. He wasn’t good at talking these things out, but if he didn’t try, Makoto would just sink deeper into despair and self-pity. Finally Sousuke said, “Do you want to still be together?”

Makoto sucked in a breath. They’d never discussed being together, not when their hearts were committed to permanent distraction. And now Sousuke had not only acknowledged that they _were_ together, he offered an avenue for them to remain together. 

“Yes, but…Haru…”

“I want to be with Rin too,” Sousuke said. 

“Then this will never work, will it?” Makoto said, the grim smile on his face telling everything.

Sousuke finally laughed. “Makoto, I’ve lived most of my life in a harem. If I can’t figure out how four men can all love each other at once, no one can.”

“But what if I always love Haru more?” Makoto blurted.

“You will,” Sousuke said. “And I don’t care.”

Something moved inside Makoto’s heart. Like a dam crumbling, tears began leaking down his face. “No one’s ever told me I could love Haru.”

Sousuke’s heart squeezed. He knew what it felt like for one’s feelings to not be acknowledged. 

“They’re going to need our support,” Sousuke said. 

“I know,” Makoto said, wiping his eyes. “I…I’ll go back to Iwatobi with Haru. You can stay in the palace with Rin.”

Sousuke stared off at the wall as Makoto continued to cry. He leaned in, daring to touch his leg to Makoto’s. When the other didn’t flinch away, he slowly fit himself against his lover. 

After their bodies acclimated to each other’s, Sousuke slowly lifted Makoto’s chin and kissed him gently. Makoto’s lips pressed tightly at first, but opened finally and pressed tenderly against Sousuke’s mouth. 

Afterward a brief exchange of kisses, Makoto managed to meet Sousuke’s eyes and give a small smile. Then they both rested, cuddled against each other.

***

A general hubbub burst out in the harem. 

Makoto flinched in Sousuke’s arms. Somehow they’d fallen asleep collapsed on each other despite their injuries. His body protested at the poor treatment the moment he tried to move. He hissed and grabbed his nonresponsive and throbbing shoulder. 

“Sousuke?” Makoto responded with concern.

“It’s fine,” Sousuke brushed away the comment. It wasn’t fine, he knew it and Makoto knew it and eventually the whole world would know but that didn’t mean they had to deal with the implications in that very moment. 

Sousuke slid into a sitting position. He suddenly realized that Makoto’s injuries prevented him from even getting up. It finally dawned on him that his lover had probably come closer to death from the arrow wounds than anyone knew. 

“You?” Sousuke asked.

“It hurts,” Makoto admitted. 

Incongruously, Sousuke concluded that Rin was a dangerous person to be around. And speaking of Rin, Sousuke was pretty sure he heard that familiar voice answering Mikoshiba in the harem at that very moment. Nervous about seeing the prince, Sousuke distracted himself with his cabinet of supplies. The freshly scabbed-over knife wound on his chest pulled, sending unpleasant jolts of pain through his body. He grunted as he pulled out some herbs and a honey base. 

Something stronger… He’d always quested for stronger and stronger pain blockers. Topping his strongest formula would be pretty impossible given the limits of his supplies and knowledge. 

Several slabs of willow bark went into the mortar bowl, to be ground with the best force a basically one-armed man could muster. There was already-ground willow in the cabinet, but fresh might be better. There were a few flowers that usually amplified the painkilling properties, and those were ground up too. Everything was dumped into the honey tray and mixed. 

When the concoction was finished, Sousuke returned to the bed.

“I’m going to replace your bandages and apply painkilling balm,” Sousuke said to Makoto. “Can you lift your chest?”

Makoto nodded, obliging as always, placing each of his large palms flat against the bed and pushing his torso up. He cried out.

“What are you doing to Mako?” said an irritated voice from the doorway. It just figured that Nanase would chose now of all moments to make himself known. By all accounts, he’d been the one who’d carried Makoto all the way from the prison to the harem, so Sousuke couldn’t be very bitter… He could still be a little bitter.

“Haru?” Makoto fell back against the bed.

“You’re making him hurt,” Haru accused.

Sousuke grunted. “Then lift him. Do you think I can with my arm?”

Haru noted Sousuke’s limp arm hanging in a linen sling. Even though the look on his face was sour, he nodded and pushed aside a pillow to cushion Makoto’s head in his lap. Those lithe, strong arms lifted Makoto’s chest up. 

“Hurry,” Haru ordered.

Sousuke wasted no time slicing off the existing bandages with a short knife. Makoto winced when the dull side of the blade slid against his skin, an expression Sousuke liked no better than the red flush on Makoto’s face from being in Haru’s lap. The soiled bandages fell off and Sousuke saw the red wounds for the first time. Arrow wounds were prone to disease, but these appeared clear enough. Still, it was good that he’d mixed his medicine in honey, which could minimize infection. 

“Faster,” Haru said. Sousuke gritted his teeth. He was already going as fast as he could, dammit. Still, from the trembling in Makoto’s back, he knew he had to hurry. He slid new bandages under Makoto’s chest. “Okay,” he said. 

The brown-haired man whimpered in relief once he was laid down. It was little easier to listen to the man’s purring when Haru petted his head when Sousuke finished applying ointment, knowing he’d make quite a difference in his lover’s comfort. 

“Thanks for saving him,” Sousuke said to Haru, tired of letting the jealousy spiral him down a deep hole to the depression he knew waited at that bottom.

Haru averted his eyes, a light blush coloring his otherwise static features. “Thank you.”

That sort of aversion to direct communication, Nanase and Makoto must have learned it from each other. That was also Sousuke’s cue to leave. 

“Hey, where do you think you’re going?” A figure blocked Sousuke from escaping the intimate scene. And the one blocking his way was none other than Rin. Of course the prince also had to be there at that exact moment. 

Rin looked exquisite. Brightness sharpened him from the tips of his vibrant hair to the jut of his elbows. His red eyes flashed with reflected sunbeams from the pool. His favorite loose white robe exposed a large white triangle of perfectly toned chest. Though, he was not without marks of the trauma of the past few days: blotches discolored the curves under his eyes, and his lips were reddened.

Red lips drew Sousuke to a shocking development. “Your teeth,” he said. Rin’s teeth, always on the sharp side, were now unnaturally triangular. The poison must have eaten away at them.

Rin frowned. “That’s all you have to say to me?”

“Are you okay?” Sousuke followed up.

“Why are you worried?” Rin grunted.

“Because I saw you almost die!” Sousuke shouted. The room quieted. Then Rin was back, shouting in his face.

“Why didn’t you come back to the palace sooner?” Rin yelled.

“You didn't need me!” Sousuke yelled.

“Yes I did!” Rin growled.

Sousuke scoffed. 

“What,” Rin’s fists clenched, “will it take to make you believe me?”

“Rin set me free,” Haru added. Rin nodded.

Sousuke wasn’t impressed. He’d known that would be the case from the first moment he heard the news of Haru’s divine lineage from Rei. But Makoto, who apparently had harbored doubts, gasped. 

“H-haru,” Makoto was tripping all over his tongue in excitement. “Then you’ll come back to Iwatobi now?”

“Yes,” Rin and Haru said in unison. Rin now leaned against Sousuke’s wall, confrontation apparently resolved to his satisfaction. “Anyway, what will it take you to believe that I actually want you, Sousuke?”

_Nothing will convince me,_ the fluffer wanted to scream. His own self-worth was so low that Rin, his idol, could never understand where he was coming from. Seeing the frozen reaction, Rin sighed and sauntered over to Sousuke. With a playful smirk, he fell to his knees.

Bright red hair pressed against the teal fabric of Sousuke’s loose linen pants. The thin fibers did little to conceal the contours of the groin. Rin’s smile was sinful and oh-so-confident as he nipped the fabric. Blood flowed unbidden to Sousuke’s cock; tingles of arousal only registered in his brain after the damage had been done. 

Sousuke wished he could say he mounted a resistance, but trembling thighs parted and he let his pants be pulled down to his ankles. A hot breath ghosted over his half-hard erection. He also wished he’d snarked something about Rin’s insanely sharp teeth, but it wasn’t until he felt a tip press into the sensitive head that he grunted. “Fuck, Rin!”

“Shut up, you’re moving around too much!” Rin grabbed Sousuke’s thighs.

“Bed,” Haru said.

“I already thought of that!” Rin snapped, pivoting Sousuke and forcing his back to sit on the bed. Two sets of eyes watched as Rin re-settled between Sousuke’s legs.

To say the blowjob was excruciating was…completely accurate. Rin clearly hadn’t gained a good sense of his new teeth, and kept catching or rubbing them against the delicate skin. To make matters worse, there was definitely some kissing going on between Makoto and Haru right next to them. 

“Stop,” Sousuke said, grabbing Rin’s chin and pulling him up to look right into his eyes. “Learn to use your mouth this way first.” He kissed Rin, tasting the prince’s refined and spicy flavor underneath the veneer of his unworthy cock flavor. Rin’s tongue responded well to Sousuke’s, and as their mouths hashed out the limits of Rin’s teeth, arousal started to pool in his gut. 

With his good arm, he pulled the prince into his lap. Mindful of the other’s sling-bound arm, Rin plowed his fingers into Sousuke’s short hair and held on for dear life. Fingers with painted nails impatiently pushed robes aside so their cocks could press flesh-to-flesh.

Poor of an idea as it seemed, the only substance approaching lube within reach was the honey ointment smeared on Sousuke’s fingers. Rin’s dick chafed against him; the remnants of saliva had dried leaving them both dry. 

Maybe it was the pathetic noise that left his mouth when Rin tweaked his already abused foreskin, but the pressure let up.

“Haru,” Rin said breathlessly.

“Shit,” Sousuke said when a black-haired head inserted itself between their bodies. Haru’s shoulder jostled the sling as he slathered both cocks with attention. “This is a fucking rotten idea.”

“Shut up and enjoy something for once, you idiot,” Rin growled. 

Despite all the pain, it really was good. Rin’s hand and Haru’s mouth worked well in tandem. Sousuke leaned back and let the pair enjoy him, and themselves. Makoto’s leg pressed against his. He spared a glance and was treated to Makoto’s flushed and proud erection tenting the sheets. Fuck, if his arm wasn’t so busted, he would reach over and jerk the large man off. The image of making Makoto come while Haru and Rin lavished attention on his own dick shot a pulse of arousal through him. 

Rin came first, and once Sousuke felt semen leaking onto his own shaft, he followed breathlessly behind. Haru’s mouth disappeared, apparently uninterested in lapping up any seed. 

They descended on Makoto as one. 

Or rather, Haru took his mouth with cock, Rin lifted his hips to grasp his trapped erection and Sousuke settled between Makoto’s legs with clean hands and fresh lubricant. He rubbed the beautiful globes before sliding a slick finger into the crease between his buttocks. 

Makoto moaned as he was spread and tugged and probed. Sousuke had never tried to get someone off with just his fingers before, but he held all the requisite knowledge. Makoto was quite responsive, and even with tender pressure, his hole clenched whenever he found a particularly good spot. Thrusting with just two fingers, Makoto trembled and groaned. 

Haru squeezed Rin’s shoulder, apparently communicating to bring Makoto off. Sousuke pummeled Makoto’s ass as his cock was treated to Rin’s fast strokes. It was enough to reduce the big man to a shuddering, orgasmic mess. 

Rin and Sousuke were quick to clean and right Makoto’s hips. Haru remained a comforting presence, patting damp strands of hair off his face. 

No one complained when Rin settled against Makoto (in Sousuke’s old place) and promptly fell asleep. Haru, who hated to be left out, crawled into the slim space on Makoto’s other side. With nowhere to collapse, Sousuke sighed and let his three lovers steal his bed while he made do with Nagisa’s old bed in the next room. 

***

Unguarded Rin was Sousuke’ favorite, and he was treated to it the next morning. The harem glowed pale pink with the earliest of morning light, the corners and nooks still the dusky blue of night. Rin’s nude silhouette stretched as he stood against the backdrop of the harem’s pool. He made no particular noise, maybe a mere groan as he stretched, but it awoke Sousuke. 

As much as he liked watching Rin, there was something he needed to know. 

Rin flinched when he noticed the harem’s fluffer beside him, and gave him shit for it, but then answered Sousuke’s question. 

“I gave the councilors a choice," Rin said. "They could swear loyalty or they could be exiled from the capital. Most of them chose loyalty. It’s a bigger pain, but it’s not like I have any other advisers right now.”

“Did you tell them about Nana—Haru?” Sousuke corrected.

“Of course," Rin answered.

“You’ll really let him go?” Sousuke said, holding his breath.

“Rei and Nagisa didn’t give me a lot of choice,” Rin’s expression became an unreadable blend of bitter and gentle. “And if Haru really can rebuild Iwatobi and restore the Great River then I’ll have kept my promise to the councilors to make this country better. And my father.”

“Huh?” Sousuke hadn’t heard about any “abilities.”

“One of Haru’s divine abilities is to attract water. That’s why there’s been a drought, geez, didn’t they tell you that?” Rin's eyebrows did something funny.

“You don’t have to be so mean,” Sousuke grumped.

“You’re too sensitive!” Rin shouted. “Well, at least I know you’ll always be here for me.”

Sousuke faced Rin head on. “Rin, it makes me happy to hear you love me. It truly does.”

Rin smiled. It was a beautiful thing that made Sousuke’s heart ache. He must have stared too long and too wistfully, because the smiles faded and Rin said, “But? It sounds like a but. What are you hiding?”

“I’m not hiding anything. That’s why I’m telling you this.” Sousuke frowned and took a deep breath. “I’m not staying here,” he said firmly. “It’s because I want to stand beside you one day that I’m leaving to study medicine.”

Rin’s eyes went wide. Tears pooled in the corners of the prince’s eyes, quickly overwhelmed by a wave of deep emotion so characteristic of him. 

“I’ll be alone!” Rin panicked. 

“You have Nitori. You have a whole harem,” Sousuke believed that to be enough.

“But you’re the one I want!” Rin said.

Oh, the ache that simple statement caused. “You don’t know how happy that makes me,” Sousuke managed not to weep somehow. “But I’m leaving anyway. And when I come back, _you’ll_ have to be the one proving himself worthy to stand by _my_ side.”

Tears slowed freely down Rin’s face. He kicked Sousuke’s shin. “Y-you’ll never be better than me.”

Sousuke kissed him, and was kissed back fiercely. His mouth only bled a little when Rin was done with him.


	17. Beginning

After how long it had taken to get to the decision to leave, preparations for departure seemed to fly by. Kisumi eagerly told Sousuke of the medical school where his little brother was receiving treatment. It was in Sano, Sousuke’s hometown, and turned out that classes started at the end of the season. With a royal recommendation, Sousuke would have no problem getting in, but he chose to hide away the document Rin grudgingly presented him with and try to get in on his own merits. 

While he was packing up to arrive in time for entrance examinations, his chambers were occupied by the entirety of the Iwatobi crew in shifts. Makoto couldn’t physically move yet and Haru refused to leave him. Rei, who only reluctantly left the library when begged, nevertheless came by to tell Haru and Makoto of his findings. Nagisa was in general hard to find as he strengthened his connections at the palace, and yet they found ways to all be there at once, laughing and talking while Sousuke grumpily tried to decide how much of each compound and herb to bring. 

One thing he didn’t have to worry about was a replacement. Mikoshiba complained but clapped Sousuke on the good shoulder and told him to get out. “We’ll be fine without you! I’m a dependable guy.”

He also gave Sousuke freedom from an unspoken concern. “When you come back, you’ll be heading up the medical wing. Don’t worry about coming back to the harem.”

Sousuke nodded. “I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for me.”

Mikoshiba gave him a vigorous hug. “I’m grateful for all the assholes and drama you took for the team.” He laughed while sauntering off. 

As the timing would have it, Sousuke’s departure fell before Makoto was well enough to travel. Though he never thought he’d be grateful for Haru, he was actually relieved that the taciturn swimmer would be there to comfort the prince and distract him. He was more ambivalent about releasing Makoto, who was still churning in guilt, into his care. 

He hardly saw Rin, who was rather preoccupied with restructuring his cabinet of advisors and caught up in other matters of general governance. But on his last night, Rin invited him alone to his chambers. They ate dinner together, a gift of intimacy that Sousuke treasured no matter how physically intimate they’d been together. When the sun set, Rin stood at his wide, open window and let the hot summer air dance with his thin white robe and ruby hair. A serious cast to the prince’s face dominated his somewhat thoughtful expression. He seemed to be staring with the gaze of a true ruler, surveying and marveling at the beauty and immensity of this thing that he had been entrusted with and loved beyond reason and sought to hold the entirety of, if only his mind. 

Sousuke knew exactly how that felt as he gazed at Rin. 

And yet he had the stirrings of self-worth and excitement within him for the first time. With those feelings carefully encircled within a protective wall of dignity, he joined Rin at the window and practiced looking at something far more vast than a single person. He looked at the evidence of human life, dreams and striving. He imagined the bodies of the populace, their illnesses and strengths and imagined healing every single one. 

He caught Rin smiling at him.

“It’s a lot, isn’t it? But you can do it,” Rin said. “You better do it.”

“If I could keep the prince of Samezuka satisfied for all these years, there’s nothing I can’t do,” Sousuke smiled. 

“Just don’t get any ideas about running the kingdom,” Rin pouted. 

“I’m not a complete idiot,” Sousuke laughed.

“Just a regular idiot,” Rin grinned. 

***

As it turned out, Makoto was not his last goodbye of the day; rather the first.

Their goodbye was the most fraught though. No longer wincing when he sat, Makoto still had yet to recover much of the gentle and easygoing nature that had so easily won Sousuke over. And yet, as they said their goodbyes and promises to meet again, pieces of that warm heart shone through. Sousuke would not easily forget the first man who ever loved him. 

Kisumi snuck in a grope and Nitori regaled him with promises of how he would tend to Rin’s needs. Momo wailed and asked to be taken with, to which Mikoshiba batted him on the head and then wished Sousuke a safe journey. 

Rei and Nagisa followed him to the stables, and while Rei tried to cram in last minute information about the proposed reconstruction of Iwatobi’s waterways, Nagisa finally shushed him and gave Sousuke a big hug. They would be taking off on their own adventure soon if Nagisa had anything to say about his dancing career. “Don’t be surprised if you get a visit!” he chirped, and it didn’t sound as much like a threat as he imagined it might. 

When the capitol finally receded in the distance, Sousuke breathed in the warm summer air and faced the grand expanse of sand in front of him. Somewhere down this path in the humid jungle of Sano lay his future. He kept walking forward, camel in tow. It was the beginning of his journey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter to wrap everything up; to be followed by double epilogues.


	18. Epilogue I: Six Months Later

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It may not seem like it, but my only real goal in writing the second part of the story was to reach a sex scene for Momo. After everything, I couldn't fit one in, so here I present it.

Shoving his fingers up Momotarou Mikoshiba’s ass was not an activity Sousuke had in mind for his first return to Samezuka Palace since he left his position as royal fluffer, but given his prior profession, he supposed the scene was only fitting. 

A month prior, in a letter, the elder Mikoshiba had hinted that Sousuke should strongly consider returning to Samezuka’s capital on his semester break. Despite a niggling feeling that something was being hidden from him, the former fluffer was nevertheless eager to return to the place that he’d called home for all of his formative years. It wasn't that he was desperate to see Rin - at least not while he had the fascinating study of medicine and his knowledgeable teachers to occupy him - more that he was interested in bringing his new self into the old haunts and reveling in the change.

Yet, here he was in his old chamber, with his fingers in a writhing boy. 

“Princess Gou rejected him!” Mikoshiba had lamented over a welcoming pot of tea in his office. “I should have waited longer to introduce him to her harem, but he fell for her, so I let him. What a mistake!”

Sousuke kept from rolling his eyes. Momo’s ability to get a crush on anything he admired was apparently undeterred by gender.

Mikoshiba explained that Momo had then begged to be in Rin’s harem, since all his friends were there. “You know I couldn’t say no!” the Keeper said. “But I can’t do this prep stuff myself, I’m his brother. Thank the gods you said yes.”

Sousuke had definitely not said yes, only that he would come visit in general. But of course that distinction was lost on the vibrant redhead, who wasted no time reuniting his little brother with his former underling and closing the door on them. 

“Sousuke!” Momo cried out as he gyrated needy hips to take in more of Sousuke’s fingers. “More!”

“I said this is all. You want to please the prince, don’t you?” Sousuke scolded. 

“Mmmmnnn!” Momo shuddered in pleasure, fists twisting in the sheets.

A spark of arousal thrummed through Sousuke’s gut. Momo cut one of the prettiest pictures he’d seen on his bed. He was slim, not yet as bulked up as his brother had hoped, but that made each tremor of his heated body more noticeable. The redhead thrashed with every new wave of pleasure, not only telegraphing unmistakable desire but also helping him work up an attractive sheen of sweat across his tanned skin.

Watching Momo attempt to restrain his greedy nature to hold out for the prince pleased Sousuke, and he rewarded the boy with a purposeful and directed thrust of his fingers. Momo came all over his sweaty and oiled chest. Sousuke knocked his fist against his head in frustration. He’d underestimated the sensitivity of this virgin. And also, it had been a long time since he’d done this. Still, he expected better. 

“Wow,” Momo was already moving around, messing with the come on his belly. “You’re amazing, Sousuke! Do I get to see the prince now?”

Maybe there was nothing to worry about. 

“After the mess gets cleaned up,” Sousuke frowned, glancing at the hour of the sun. With a cloth he sopped up the hot white fluid not only dressing Momo’s abdomen but spattered seemingly everywhere from his inner thighs to where Momo rubbed the fluid on his breastbone. A slap of scented oil afterward and everything was good as new. Just as Sousuke finished, the clamor of the harem announced Rin’s arrival. 

“Go seduce him,” Sousuke gave Momo a slap on the ass that propelled the boy forward. 

“R-right!” Momo said. 

Sousuke started cleaning up, mind occupied with practical matters. Some of the oils would separate if not properly stored, so it was important to seal them up quickly. Better to focus on what needed to be done than jack off pathetically to Rin like he used to. He was focused on burning a new wax seal around a jar when his door suddenly burst open. 

“Sousuke!” Rin’s flushed face was as beautiful as ever, and he wore the same stupid white robe with black cape and red turban that he seemed so fond of. Sousuke froze for a minute. He had been so lost in patterns of the past that he forgot what it was like to have Rin actually speak to him. 

“Well, what are you doing?” Rin said. “Hurry up.”

Sousuke eyed the situation. Rin was happy and demanding, and Momo, whose lips looked as red as his cheeks, smiled from behind the prince.

“He’s already prepared,” Sousuke deadpanned. 

“Don’t pretend to be an idiot,” Rin scoffed. 

Sousuke’s eyes widened in realization. Rin couldn’t be actually suggesting a threesome, could he? “Don’t be disrespectful of Momo. He wants your attention.” Sousuke chanced a glance at Momo and immediately realized he was totally fucked. The younger Mikoshiba had a wicked grin as if he’d just been told he was getting two birthday cakes. Plus Christmas presents. 

“Fine,” Sousuke got up. 

Rin’s snotty smirk deserved to be wiped off his face, and Sousuke did that with an overpowering kiss. Then Rin fisted Sousuke’s tunic and dragged the former Deputy Keeper into the prepared room and tossed him onto the bed of pillows. 

“This is what you tried to say no to,” Rin smirked and pulled Momo into a deep and possessive kiss. 

Poor Momo was no match for the prince. The boy was holding on for dear life to Rin’s broad back, cock straining into waiting air while Rin grasped his short hair in one hand and explored the heated, taut flesh of Momo’s neck with his mouth. 

Taking pity on the boy’s situation, Sousuke shifted to his knees and brought that swollen cock into his mouth. It was sizable for such a slim person, and Sousuke had a fleeting and unwelcome thought as to the dimensions of the elder Mikoshiba’s genitals. He refocused on lathering the soft, spongy head with saliva. Momo mewled adorably somewhere above him where Rin was no doubt destroying him bite by bite.

Might as well give Rin some attention too. Releasing the prince’s thick cock from the confines of the robe was simple, and Sousuke licked the tip before sliding his tongue down the salty, straining length. Just as quickly he was nibbling back along Momo’s shaft.

“Fuck, Sousuke,” he earned breathless praise from Rin. 

Grasping both shafts, Sousuke split his attention between Momo’s dark and nearly erupting cock and Rin’s equally long and twitching dick. This unique pleasure continued for an indefinite amount of time, and Sousuke would have been glad to let it continue for damn near his whole life if Rin hadn’t fisted the short strands of Sousuke’s black hair and pulled him off. They were all rendered dumb by overwhelming lust, and so Rin simply pushed Momo to the bedding and fitted himself between his legs. With a noticeably forceful thrust of hips, and a resulting cry from Momo, the prince rutted into his virgin.

Momo looked as glorious being fucked as Sousuke had fantasized, the full version of penetration causing him to arch his flexible back and scramble for purchase against Rin. Not long ago, Sousuke would have simply waited for directions from his prince, but he was not that man any longer.

“Rin, stop for a second and pull out,” Sousuke said as he inserted himself into the scene. He flipped Momo unto his stomach, then positioned the boy’s head right next to his crotch. “Suck,” he commanded Momo. The boy took to sucking cock with the same gusto as everything else, and what he lacked in technique, he made up for in pure passion. The pressure of his tongue alone had Sousuke seeing stars.

Rin resumed fucking, and Sousuke could see every drop of sweat roll down the perfectly defined abdomen of the man he loved. He could feel Rin’s thrusts pass through Momo’s body and onto his cock. Sharing Momo was the best damn idea he’d ever had. 

Rin’s eyes slid shut and he shuddered out his climax. 

Momo whined desperately around Sousuke’s cock and the vibrations pushed him to his climax as well.

When teeth pressed uncomfortably into his softening length, accompanied by a guttural, if muffled, moan, Sousuke found that Rin had stroked Momo to climax as well. The red-haired boy had to be pried off Sousuke’s cock, and he didn’t seem keen on resting like the older men. But when forced to be still, he quickly fell asleep. Rin and Sousuke shared a grin. 

Then a kiss. 

Then a grasping, desperate, soulful embrace. 

“I missed you,” Rin whispered.

Sousuke smiled. 

“Say it back, you idiot,” Rin kicked Sousuke’s calf. 

“There really aren’t words for how much I care about you,” Sousuke replied. Rin was always a sucker for romance, and the words hit a bulls-eye. 

“Shut up!” the prince whispered fiercely. His cheeks were so warm that Sousuke could feel their flush. “You’re always trying to one-up me, aren’t you?”

“I said I was going to become someone who you had to work to catch up to,” Sousuke said. 

Rin grumbled at that, but their argument was easily diffused by gentle touches that lasted well into the night.


	19. Epilogue II: One Year Later

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little something to send you off into the future~

There was a longer break in the summer months, during which Sano became so oppressively humid that any sort of study was a doomed venture. Though Sousuke had his own rented room and an apprenticeship, he was sweating his balls off, so he decided to take a few weeks to return to the palace. 

Unrelated, he’d been promised Makoto and Haru.

As the arid, dry heat of the capital city coursed through his lungs, Sousuke wondered how he’d endured such harsh conditions for so many years. Surely his childhood body had stumbled over the change—but probably he was too focused on Rin to ever notice. Being able to focus on the whole world around him was one of the major benefits of breaking his dependency on the fiery redhead. 

And so, being "more observant," he noticed some oddities about the details of the visit:

1) He was asked to arrive in the evening, despite everyone knowing that meant traveling in the heat of day, or arriving early and puttering around.  
2) When he did arrive, there was an air of festivity despite it not being a holy day.  
3) The harem had been decorated to resemble an oasis. 

Actual palm trees in large pots formed a canopy over the pool. Real sand piled in miniature dunes across the harem floor; not a tile was in sight. Even the bottom of the pool was covered in a fine layer of sparkling sand. Lanterns clustered on the ceiling, whiting out the dusk with potent light. It was truly as if he’d walked into a perfect version of the outdoors. Carpets piled with pillows masked off areas for play, food and drinks. Although most of the harem members were conspicuously missing, there was an air of anticipation and excitement. 

The pealing of hundreds of tiny silver bells alerted Sousuke to a familiar silk-clad blond. Dressed into more clothes than Sousuke could hardly remember seeing the former harem boy in, Nagisa cut a fine picture. His lithe form had acquired a further fluidity and his round face just a little more maturity. 

“Sousuke!” he bounded over and embraced the stoic man. “How do I look?”

Sousuke really was not sure what to say. 

“Speechless?!" Nagisa smiled. "Wow! Rei-chan, Sousuke likes my costume, how about that?”

“Yamazaki is here already?” Rei said. The blue-haired man emerged from behind a palm tree. Unexpectedly, he wore his guardman’s uniform, arms crossed over the exposed chest of the bolero jacket. He looked around awkwardly, as if there were someone he needed to notify. He finally addressed the guest with a polite bow rather than linger longer in Awkwardland. “May I ask how your arm is doing?”

“It’s better,” Sousuke said. It was the truth. Being surrounded by medical personnel day-in and day-out meant that he’d received cutting edge care. His arm had regained some range of motion. 

“All the better to jerk us off with,” Nagisa grinned. 

“Nagisa!” Rei squealed. “You aren’t supposed to say anything about the surprise!”

“You’re the one who just let slip there was a surprise, Rei-chan!”

“What’s the surprise?” Sousuke asked, dreading the response. 

“AN ORGY!” Nagisa shouted. A few of the other harem members looked over at the loud shout. 

“An orgy,” Nagisa repeated, leaning up to whisper in Sousuke’s ear. The air tickled pleasantly. “Sex with everyone. That’s what an orgy means. And you’re…” Nagisa’s finger teased its way down Sousuke’s chest, “the guest of honor.”

“We weren’t supposed to tell him,” Rei chided.

“Well, now that we have, everyone can just come in and start!” Nagisa said. “Get everybody! It’s gonna start with my dance anyway.”

But Nagisa wasn’t going to get his way this time. The party had to wait for all the guests. As Haru and Makoto entered, each embraced Sousuke and began talking. Nitori and Kisumi crowded around too. Sousuke had to say everyone looked well. The person he most worried about, Makoto, didn’t look as stricken as before. The big man's hand rested easily on Haru now and wasn’t swatted away. Happy as Sousuke was that the two men seemed to have formed a loving relationship, he yearned for his own easy connection with Makoto. 

“Sousuke!” 

A flash of gold announced the prince’s entrance. He wore the same loose white tunic he so favored, his jewelry glistening like drops of the sun in the bright light of the hanging lanterns. And it was with all the glory and fury of the sun that he stalked towards Sousuke. 

“Why didn’t you come to my chambers first?!”

Sousuke, taken aback at the vitriol, and the volume of the prince’s existence, frowned. “I didn’t intend—”

“Shut up!” Rin said, and kissed Sousuke square on the mouth. Someone cheered. It was definitely Nagisa. 

When Rin pulled his lips away, it was only to whisper low, sinful words against Sousuke’s cheek. “I’m going to have you tonight.”

A flush spread across Sousuke’s face, hotter for all the time his sex drive had spent dormant as of late. The blush remained as the crew made themselves comfortable, talking and eating from servants’ serving trays until the lights flickered dim and Nagisa took to the center. 

The dance was a thing of beauty. Since Iwatobi, Nagisa had worked hard to add athleticism to his natural sensuality. Despite the presence of a prince, Nagisa owned the room as he danced entrancingly to drums and other musical accompaniments. Once the blond had exhausted his choreography, he began to drape himself over members of the audience. Being Nagisa, he was none too shy about touching—or sitting on—anyone. 

But when he reached Sousuke, he winked and said cutely, “Your treat’s later, Sou-chan,” before sliding into Rin’s laps for giggles and kisses. 

Watching Rin and Nagisa together was a kind of treat. Their natural sexual rhythm, honed over years of trysts, quickly overtook them. Like one being they writhed, groin pressed against groin, Nagisa’s sweaty flesh sliding against Rin’s toned muscles. 

“May I?” A voice interrupted Sousuke’s laser focus. 

Rei knelt next to him, on hands and knees. He gestured towards the bulge in Sousuke’s pants. 

Sousuke nodded. What the hell. It was an orgy after all. 

Rei lowered his face and rubbed the clothed erection against his cheek. A wet, pink tongue darted out and licked along the stiff shaft. The blue-haired man's mouth closed over and ran along the the length, dousing the fabric in wetness and heat. In this surprisingly obscene manner, Sousuke proceeded to receive a hearty and through blowjob—over his pants—from Nagisa’s lover. His mind drifted to places it didn’t need to go. How long had Rei hungered for him? Since their time in Iwatobi? Since just this night when Nagisa begged him to go down on the grumpy former deputy keeper? From the passion and precision, it was only possible to know that he took this task very seriously. 

When he started to feel very soaked and Rei was making tiny noises, he pulled the man up into a kiss. He was rewarded with the mashing of prim lips pressed against his. Rei leaned back, a very sated look on his attractive face. “If you are inclined, I propose we continue this. Trying new things keeps one flexible in mind and body.”

Sousuke scoffed. That last part had to come directly from Nagisa. 

“I would like to give you a blowjob. Without a barrier,” Rei clarified. 

Sousuke nodded, very satisfied with this turn of events. 

“I’ve been meaning to perfect my technique, but I’ve been informed that unless I expand the diversity of members I’m not—”

“No fair, Rei,” cooed a familiar husky voice. A pink-haired man, dressed in only the bare minimum of silks, crouched next to the pair. “Sousuke can’t last like Nagisa, you know. And I want my turn.”

Rei looked about to protest, but a long pale finger pressed against his lips. “Please share?” Kisumi asked.

Rei’s brows furrowed. 

“It’s okay,” Sousuke interjected. 

“You won’t be disappointed,” Kisumi said, straddling Sousuke’s thick thigh and shuffling down until his face was crotch-level. His indecent hand teased the flat of the man’s abdomen, sinking lower to the waistband. Pretty eyes flickered under heavy lashes as Kisumi bit his lip and made eye contact while releasing Sousuke's cock from the spoiled confines of his garments. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” Kisumi said, suddenly tugging Rei’s sleeve. In a fluid motion, the guard’s hand was forced to make contact with the bulge in Sousuke’s pants. “Let’s do this together.”

Kisumi’s smoldering eyes fixed Sousuke in place he was played with. Calm, practiced hands took in his girth, leaving Sousuke feeling vulnerable and exposed while also completely indulged. For his part, Rei was keeping up with the pink-haired boy, hands endearingly following his lead as he flushed an even darker shade of red.

"Time to taste~" Kisumi purred. His lips fit around the head of Sousuke's cock, suckling the soft flesh while Rei continued to stroke the rest of his shaft. Kisumi murmured appreciation and ground his own very hard cock against Sousuke's leg. After some exquisite working of Kisumi's tongue that had him seeing stars behind closed lids, Sousuke noticed the slick slide of a second mouth against him. He cracked open his eyes to see Kisumi and Rei sharing his dick between their mouths. This seemed to be rather pleasing to Kisumi in particular, who soon shuddered and released a wet patch against Sousuke's leg. 

“I’m back!” suddenly Nagisa announced. “Ooh, Rei-chan, so sexy!” Nagisa’s cheery voice settled behind Sousuke, and soon enough small hands clasped his shoulders, soft curls tickling his neck. 

“You know, Sou-chan. You’ve always been my fantasy,” Nagisa purred into Sousuke’s ear. “Since I first got here I always imagined riding that big cock of yours. You’re so thick.”

If the twitch of his cock was any indication, Sousuke had a previously untriggered predilection towards dirty talk. 

The continuing soft, filthy sounds coming from Nagisa’s mouth completely seduced him. So entranced was he that he barely registered Haru’s appearance in his lap, the liquid slick of the lubrication Nitori slathered on him. Haru was riding him before he could even moan, and the hands of the others caressed and teased him. 

Nagisa continued whispering into his ear, and damn it if it wasn’t like the best of both men at once—Nagisa’s clever tongue and Haru’s majestic body combined. 

Haru didn’t last forever, and Momo came to pay his respects between Sousuke’s thighs, while getting pounded by Rin. Nitori too even rode him for a little and came embarrassingly fast. Sousuke was so overstimulated he wasn’t sure if he could even come anymore. 

“Our turn,” Rin broke the sensual spell and the human forms clustered around Sousuke drew back as if escaping a beaming light. A large form stood in that beaming light; it was Makoto, whose lips were swollen from kissing and whose naked cock shamelessly defied its owner’s shyness. 

RIn extended his hand; Sousuke was pulled up. The trio fumbled arm-in-arm to an enormous plush pillow. Rin commanded, “Lie down on your stomach, Makoto,” and the obedient brunette did, stifling a pleasured moan. 

“Ass or mouth, Sousuke?” Rin grinned like the devil he was. 

“What kind of a question is that?” Sousuke retorted, instinctively reacting against the rude words. 

Sharpness cut into Rin’s features. “A normal one for an orgy, you idiot.”

“A-ass please,” Makoto mumbled. The tips of his ears were bright red. 

“There,” Rin said, happily clapping Sousuke on the shoulder. Bad shoulder still—Rin was such a jerkwad. 

Sousuke settled behind Makoto, pressing his cock against the soft entrance. Makoto was already open and willing, hips trembling with anticipation. Sousuke pressed in with an unhurried thrust, enjoying the throbbing warmth that enveloped him. 

It wasn’t difficult for Rin to coax Makoto’s mouth open and fill it with cock. If anything, the man only moaned more. 

Sousuke was overwhelmed with a kind of delirious happiness, a peace with the world that could only be achieved from this sort of ecstasy. In that moment of bliss, he felt everything he had endured—every pain, every degrading fluffing, every dehumanizing moment he spent forgotten by the world and those he loved—had a purpose. The purpose was to build him, stronger and stronger each time, to become this person surrounded by love. 

His peace with the universe’s plan was confirmed when Haru suddenly pressed against Sousuke’s back and he didn’t even cringe. All four men were together, as they belonged. 

**

The feelings of rightness and bliss surprisingly persisted to the next day. 

All four lovers—Sousuke, Rin, Makoto, Haru—lay in various states of wakefulness in one of the harem’s rooms. Their words carried no competition, no jealousy, nor any insecurity. Then, of course, Rin had to make things complicated.

“I’m going to abdicate,” Rin suddenly said. 

“No,” Haru said, in tandem with Makoto, “You can’t.”

“Don’t do it,” Sousuke added. 

Rin pouted, sour as a small child. “What? Why not?”

“You’re the prince,” Haru said. 

“If you're stepping down to be with us, we’re not worth it,” Makoto said. 

“You belong at the top,” Sousuke said. 

Rin looked around helplessly. “But if I don't step down I’ll have to get married and have kids.”

“If you don’t want to get married, don’t,” Sousuke said. “Adopt. Or when Gou has kids, name them your heirs.”

“My sister isn’t even into guys,” Rin scoffed.

“She likes Makoto,” Haru said. 

“Haru!” Makoto squealed. “She just likes my muscles! C’mon, you’re blowing this out of proportion!”

“You’ll see,” Haru said. 

**

Perhaps Haru’s position as some kind of divine spirit was’t a mistake. 

Some years later, it was Gou who proposed the idea of borrowing one of Rin’s lovers as a stud. Having found none of her male harem whatsoever to her taste, and having no interest in being married off politically, Gou still wished to raise an heir to the Samezuka throne. She would marry her consort, Chigusa. “And I’ll chose one of your lovers, big brother, to be the father of my children.” 

Rin objected vociferously.

“It’s better than incest,” she added. 

Given the dire prospects of the situation, all parties agreed, and Makoto was chosen.

Sousuke, nearly finished with his studies at the time, wrote detailed instructions to Haru on how to milk and collect seed and sent the notes with a messenger. A half day of fretting later, he got on a camel and went to perform the deed himself. He never would forget the look on Chigusa’s face when he handed her a bulbed tube containing the precious fluid. Her expression was as grateful as the old Sergeant Sasabe’s face had been upon receiving pain medication so many years prior.

 

**

And in conclusion…

There were rumors about the prince of Samezuka. They said he had three husbands—one was the wisest doctor in the kingdom, one was made of everlasting love and fierce devotion in equal measure, and one was an actual god. 

These rumors, although romanticized, were more or less true.

Hot, dry air whisped through Sousuke’s short hair as he stood at the open window. He’d never really grown his hair out since his childhood in the military. And now the haircut was as much a part of him as much as the view he saw from the prince’s—no, his— bedchambers. The wide expanse of the city twinkled out to the horizon. Beyond was a wide world that Sousuke felt at home in. 

He felt at ease in Rin’s chambers too, which had become his own. Sousuke the Royal Fluffer had become Sousuke the Royal Consort. Too many nighttime visits prompted a permanent living space change. The chambers themselves had changed, if only because the bed had been expanded for when Haru and Makoto visited.

With an imposing man like Sousuke gracing the royal bedchambers, the number of assassins and never-do-wells decreased. He and Rin could leave the door open for the youngest Matsuokas, Gou’s children, to run around through. Though their family was a strange, unwieldy thing, Sousuke couldn’t care less what anyone thought or how much work it sometimes was. He knew an alternative where they weren’t all together was unbearable. 

He sometimes—okay, frequently—had to visit the harem to help Momo and Nitori out. They’d have to be ready some day to administrate for the next generation. All the others who remained in the harem were officially in retirement, as the prince no longer had a need to use the place. 

The harem was just a pool now.

And pools had no need of fluffers.

**The End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who read this story! Both writing and posting this worked spanned more time than I've ever spent on a story, and I learned a lot from the experience. In some ways, it already feels like the work of a different person. As someone who usually posts smutty one-shots, it was nerve-wracking to post entire chapters that had no sex! To trust that someone might keep reading! To write a conclusion! To unashamedly write oodles of Rin worship and other kinky stuff! Thank you, I am so grateful to all who read this story, and I am also glad to be finally done. Safe travels~


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